The Weekend Warrior 5/20/22
DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA, MEN, GOOD MOURNING, EMERGENCY, HOLD YOUR FIRE, CHIP ‘N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS, THE VALET, THE FRENCH, FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS, and More
Last weekend was pretty dismal, and this weekend might not be that much better, although at least there’s an anticipated sequel… and then some counter-programming that’s likely to appeal to the same female audience. Maybe? Go figure.
In case you didn’t realize, I’ve also been writing a weekly (and monthly) box office preview for the wonderful people at Tom O’Neil’s GoldDerby, and since the Weekend Warrior is late, that’s already gone live this week, and you can read it here.
DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA (Focus Features)
Another week, another sequel, but at least this one is the continuation of a very popular long-running television series that previously made the jump to the movies in 2019. It was an interesting decision and maybe a bit of a risk to take the PBS series into U.S. theaters, but it ended up paying off for Focus Features, becoming the studio’s highest-grossing hit after opening with $31 million.
In fact, the movie almost made $100 million in North America and made a similar amount overseas, so it made sense for Julian Fellowes to write a new screenplay featuring his popular characters. This sequel offers two main storylines which have a lasting impact on the characters, the first one involving Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess learning that she’s inherited a villa in the South of France from a wealthy man she had an encounter with 60 years earlier. The second story involves a silent film being shot at Downton Abbey and the chaos that creates within the dynamics of the family and staff.
Director Simon Curtis of My Week With Marilyn was brought on to direct, and most of the cast were reunited except for Matthew Goode, who was busy making “The Offer” in L.A. Instead, the sequel has Hugh Dancy (best known for the “Hannibal” series) playing the director of the silent film. (And because Goode plays the husband of Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary, you can probably assume her relationship with Dancy’s character plays a part in that storyline.) Another prominent actor joining the mix is Dominic West, who plays Guy Dexter, the leading man in the film.
It’s pretty amazing how many great British actors have been involved with this series and now the movies, and while Dame Maggie Smith is already an Oscar-winning actor from previous roles, it’s interesting to see when some of the Downton Abbey cast like Allen Leech and Tuppence Middleton show up in other movies despite being primarily known for Downton. Otherwise, there isn’t that much to say about the cast and their filmographies, since it’s really the characters they play on the show that’s the draw.
The fact that the original movie did so well might make some optimistic for the new movie, especially since it does involve (and resolve) some important storylines, but it also kind of sucks that COVID is starting to creep its ugly head back into things, which could hinder the film’s older audience from going to see the movie in theaters. There’s also less anticipation for this sequel than the original movie which came out four years after the last season of the show. You can look at something like the Sex and the City movie and how poorly its sequel did to show you a similar thing that might happen to Downton Abbey: A New Era, although one big difference is that Sex and the City 2 was destroyed by critics.
By comparison, reviews have generally been good if not quite on par with the earlier movie, and as you’ll read below, I was quite enamored with the movie even though I really haven’t watched the show, and only watched the previous movie. I think Downton Abbey has too big a fanbase to completely tank but I also think it will do more in the $20 million range to take second place to Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse of Madness.
Mini-Review: I feel the need to start this review by stressing that while I’ve never watched Downton Abbey, the series, I did see the 2019 movie, once, back when it came out. I’m not sure if that makes me the best person or worst person to review Downton Abbey: A New Era. But I will say that writer and creator Julian Fellowes has once again found a way to tell a complicated story abundantly full of characters in a way that isn’t that difficult to get involved for new viewers.
Fellowes’ brilliant writing is probably the strongest aspect of the film which doesn’t go too far into esoterica for its plot, and yet, it finds a way to evolve a few of the characters despite there being so many of them. The fact is that even if you never watched the show, you can immediately understand the appeal of the Grantham-Bransons as well as help downstairs, which has been a regular subject of Fellowes’ work.
The film begins with a wedding before we’re quickly into the two storylines, which aren’t anything groundbreaking other than where they go in terms of changing the lives of a number of Downton residents. In some ways, I liked the film-within-a-film story more, because it’s a little less specific to knowing a lot about the Downton characters. It introduces some fun characters in Dominic West’s Guy Dexter and Laura Haddock’s Myrna Dalgleish, the leading man and lady of the film, who each make a connection with Downton’s help. Myrna is an especially interesting character since she’s a beautiful woman with a horrible Cockney accent, which would not fly as “talkies” become more prevalent and desired. I liked both those additions to the ensemble, as well as Dancy as the film director who is trying to cope with the changing times, and finds a way to get Lady Mary and everyone else at Downton involved in the filmmaking process.
As always, Smith’s Lady Violet offers some of the best quips and one-liners – in fact, that’s almost all she does despite having so much to do with one of the main storyllines, in which her character has inherited a villa in the South of France.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter if you know everything or absolutely nothing about the show or its characters, since they generally fall into place as British tropes of the times. It’s a little amusing to see this not long after the long-delayed Murder on the Nile since it takes place in the same general time period, but Downton Abbey is just much more enjoyable.
More importantly, the movie offers a bit of resolution and closure for a number of the Downton Abbey characters, so if you are familiar with them (or have watched the entire series), you’re likely to appreciate what Fellowes, Curtis and the cast have done to keep the story going in a way that doesn’t feel like a waste of time or money, as these things sometimes do.
Rating: 7.5/10
MEN (A24)
This week’s other movie is the latest from Alex Garland, the screenwriter behind 28 Days Later and others, who began directing with his 2014 directorial debut Ex Machina, which was followed in 2018 by Annihilation, which was pretty much dumped by Paramount. The latter made $32.7 million compared to the former’s $25.4 million, but the budget for Annihilation was much higher than Ex Machina. In the time since then, Garland developed Devs at FX, so Men, to many, will be a welcome return for Garland to the cinema.
The movie stars Jessie Buckley, who received an Oscar nomination for her role in Netflix’s The Lost Daughter last year, who was first discovered in indies like Beast and Wild Rose, then went onto have roles in Judy and playing Queen Victoria in Robert Downey Jr.’s Dolittle. She also starred in Charlie Kaufman’s Netflix oddity, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, continuing the love she gets from critics.
In this one, Buckley plays a woman who rents a remote country house to try to get over the fact that her husband killed himself, but once there, she encounters all sorts of odd occurrences and men, all of them portrayed by Rory Kinnear, who appeared in Sam Mendes’ two Bond movies, Skyfall and Spectre.
Men continues A24’s penchant for bizarre, or if you prefer, “elevated” horror as seen from movies like Ari Aster’s Hereditary in 2018 or his follow-up Midsommar a year later. The former grossed $44 million after a solid $13.6 million opening while the latter made $10.9 million in its first five days and ended up with just $27.4 million. We can also look at A24’s release of Robert Eggers’ first two movies, The VVitch and The Lighthouse as how the studio has gotten people out to theaters with the former opening with $8.8 million and grossing $25.1 million domestically.
Those are some interesting numbers, for sure, and the fact that Men is being released in May shows that A24 has a lot of confidence in the movie (as well as allowing reviews to run much earlier than usual). The trailers for the movie have been interesting but maybe not too clear on what the movie is about – maybe more than some of those other movies mentioned – and because most Americans aren’t that familiar with either Buckley or Kinnear – not that casting matters as much for horror – makes me think that Men will probably open under $10 million and maybe end up closer to $25 million tops.
Men has continued the love affair critics have with A24, Garland AND Buckley with the movie scoring an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, although I wasn’t nearly as bullish about it in my own review. Certainly, having good reviews will help, but being such an oddball horror movie that is trying to make a rather hazy social message might make it too “woke” for younger guys and too weird for women of any age.
In other words, Men might be too weird and quizzical for its own good and since we’re in a moment of the box office where only the really strong IP-driven movies are faring well – look at how poorly The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent did even with a big star like Nicholas Cage – I don’t see Men really blowing up or doing particularly well after opening weekend once the “normals” start seeing it.
GOOD MOURNING (Open Road Films)*
Hitting theaters and VOD Friday is the directorial debut by Machine Gun Kelly, which I know next to nothing about, other than the fact he stars in it along with his girlfriend Megan Fox, Pete Davidson, Dove Cameron, and a few others. All I know about the movie is what was in the trailer with Kelly (who co-wrote and co-directed the film with another music guy named “Mod Sun”) playing actor “London Clash” whose girlfriend Apple (Becky G – have no idea who that is either) breaks up with him via text on the same day as he’s supposed to have an important meeting that might land him his first major motion picture role.
Oddly, the first thing that this movie immediately reminded me of was the Foo Fighters horror movie, Studio 666, which was released in late February, also by Open Road/Briarcliff, into 2,306 theaters – and also co-starring Whitney Cummings, oddly. It bombed with an opening weekend of just $1.5 million. It ended up with just $2.5 million domestic, and I’m not sure Good Mourning can do much better, since I’m not sure that many people are aware of this movie’s existence.
This won’t be screening in advance for critics nor do I know how wide it’s going to be released, so I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to write about it. Maybe it will be in enough theaters to break into the bottom of the top 10, but without knowing an exact theater count, it’s hard to tell.
(UPDATE: It’s looking more and more that this is only getting a limited release and if that’s the case, it won’t be in the top 10.)
THE CHART:
While I do think Downton Abbey could win Friday, since it will incorporate Thursday night screenings, Doctor Strange will likely catch up over the weekend, and both The Bad Guys and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 should benefit from being the only movie for families (though there’s some competition from the streamers, too – see below). Alec Garland’s Men might be the more interesting litmus test about the box office, because it’s likely to appeal to a different audience than Downton Abbey but will people who know nothing about it have enough to go by from the fairly generic title and Garland’s past film work?
1. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Marvel/Disney) - $29.6 million -52%
2. Downton Abbey: A New Era (Focus Features) - $22.4 million N/A
3. Men (A24) - $6.8 million N/A
4. The Bad Guys (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) - $5 million -29%
5. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Paramount) - $3.5 million -23%
6. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24) - $2.5 million -25%
3. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (Warner Bros) - $2 million -43%
8. Firestarter (Universal) - $1.4 million -62%
9. Good Mourning (Open Road) - $1.2 million N/A
(UPDATE: It’s looking more and more that this is only getting a limited release and if that’s the case, it won’t be in the top 10.)
10. The Lost City (Paramount) - $1.1 million -35%
EMERGENCY (Amazon)
Opening in theaters this Friday and then streaming on Prime Video starting May 27 is this comedy (of sorts) that kicked off the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, I actually reviewed it already, but then I saw it again more recently and enjoyed it even more.
The movie is directed by Carey Williams (R#J), who reunites with his previous film’s star, RJ Cyler, who plays Shaun, one of two university students along with his best friend and roommate Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) who are planning to take part in a “Legendary” tour of seven frat parties in one night. These plans are waylaid when they find a white girl passed out in the dorm they share with their friend Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), and the movie follows the three of them as they to figure out who the girl is and how she ended up there.
It starts out very funny but, as with most things these days, it gets into the current conversation about black male stereotypes as well as the dicey relationship they have with the police. I was pretty impressed with Williams’ work as a director and storyteller, because he’s made a movie that’s so well-paced and balanced in terms of the tone when mixing drama and laughs. He also has a pretty great young cast, and I’m glad Amazon is giving this some sort of theatrical release, because it is the kind of movie that would have played great at the Eccles if Sundance didn’t end up going virtual at the last minute.
HOLD YOUR FIRE (IFC Films)
Another Sundance premiere, this documentary by Stefan Forbes (Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story) is about a 1972 shoot-out and stand-off at a Brooklyn sporting goods store that was being robbed by four young black men that led to absolute chaos when police began firing.
Produced by Fab 5 Freddy with Sam Pollard as a Consulting Producer, the story revolves around Shu'aib Raheem, who was trying to steal guns for self defense against the Nation of Islam, and eventually becomes about how NYPD psychologist Harvey Schlossberg tried to reform the police from using violence in incidents like this one and others (such as the one that inspired Dog Day Afternoon).
I wanted to like this doc more, but it’s just a lot of talking heads with everyone who was present at the stand-off and shooting, and it gives way too much voice to the police, in my opinion, even though they clearly were in the wrong. Of course, it gets into the tension-filled relationship between the police and the Black community that continues to this day, but it also covers so much familiar ground. For instance, it brings up the Attica prison riots that were handled so much better in the Oscar-nominated Attica, so not sure why it needed to be brought up or some of the other historic events like the Munich hostage crisis, which was a very different situation.
I just didn’t find this documentary particularly interesting, because it seems like it could have been a short that’s just stretched out far beyond the length it needs to be. It opens in New York at the IFC Center, where filmmaker Stefan Forbes will be doing QnAs through the weekend.
THE FRENCH (Metrograph Press)
Opening exclusively at the Metrograph this Friday is William Klein’s 1982 documentary about the 1981 French Open i.e. the Roland Garros Tournament, which I guess should be included in the “Repertory” section below, though I think it’s pretty interesting that Metrograph has teamed with Wes Anderson to bring Klein’s film back to the public eye. Mind you, I am not really a tennis fan by any means – I’ve watched from time to time – but what makes Klein’s film interesting is how (like most docs) it acts like a time capsule of a very specific time in this popular sport where Björn Borg is the be-all end-all athlete when it comes to tennis. The tournament itself is only so interesting, but it’s seeing the likes of John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Ilie Nastase, Yannick Noah, and Ivan Lendl all in their earliest days but also getting to see a lot more behind-the-scenes of the Open than we normally would see on network sports coverage here in the States. For instance, it’s interesting how the women players are far more friendly towards each other where with the men, it’s all about the competition. Klein spent quite a bit of time following Noah, one of the French competitors and the only black man in the competition, as he has to get over a badly sprained ankle to claw his way up the ranks. It’s also quite amazing to see Borg dealing with the fans and with press since the film was made when he clearly was at the top of his game. There are lots of fun things we normally wouldn’t get to see on the broadcast of the open, including an exhibition game where Nastase gets to ham it up for a small group of viewers and other behind-the-scenes stuff in the control room and announcers’ box. We also get to hear a lot of commentary from others about the matches being played, one particularly interesting moment capturing Arthur Ashe offering his thoughts on one of Noah’s matches. The movie is kind of long (over two hours), but it’s thoroughly satisfying more for the stuff going on behind the scenes than the actual matches.
FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS (Kino Lorber)
Opening in New York at the Film Forum on Friday and in L.A. on May 27, Ajitpal Singh’s India-set drama, his directorial debut, premiered at Sundance as part of the World Cinema Dramatic competition and won a directing award at the New York Indian Film Festival. It takes place in a small Himalayan community in northern India, where a married woman named Chandra (Vinamrata Rai) needs to carry her disabled son on her back up and down the mountain since there isn’t a proper road to get them to the hospital. She also has to deal with a horrible husband named Dharam (Chandan Bisht), an alcoholic who is so caught up in the village’s traditions and shamanic rituals (known as Jagar) that he completely ignores his wife and son’s needs.
I feel like I went into this one fairly open-minded, as I do most international features set in areas I’m unfamiliar with, but I just wasn’t able to get into whatever Singh was trying to achieve. The main character Chandra and her family is introduced in such a strange way where it’s unclear exactly who we should be following. It spends a good deal of time on her son and how he’s being bullied by other kids, but it also shows what she’ll do in order to get things accomplished, which includes having a tryst with the village’s sleazy chieftain to get him to build the road. Her husband is just a compete asshole who is trying to find the money she’s hiding from him, being egged on by other men in the village that “he’s the man and should be in charge.” Her teen daughter is also getting into trouble, doing suggestive dances for TikTok videos, and her husband’s sister just kind of vanished after a family spat with her poor kid caught in the middle of it all. And all of it leads up to the Jagar, this bizarre ritual that takes place with very little context. Oh, and did I mention that there are leopards constantly on the loose in the village?
I look at a movie like this and compare it to the Oscar-nominated Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom or the Laotian The Long Walk, and even the latter’s weirdness just shows off the work of a much more focused filmmaker than Singh. In some ways, this movie might be a far more apt movie to call “Men,” because the men are so horrible, but it also doesn’t really find its footing in terms of genre and tone – is it supposed to be comedic at times? – and that makes it pretty hard to get into Chandra’s many plights in life. Things like that are what will keep Fires in the Mountain from really connecting with Western audiences.
Rating: 6/10
JUNGLE CRY (Bollywood Hollywood)
From Bollywood comes this new based-on-a-true-story movie directed by Sagar Ballary, which is based on 12 under-priveleged orphans from the Kalinga Institute (KISS) in Odisha, India on their journey to the International Junior Rugby Tournament in 2007.
DIGGER (Strand Releasing)
Greece’s official entry for International Film at the 94th Oscars will open at the Quad Cinema in New York on Friday. Directed by Georgis Grigorakis, it’s a psychological western set in the forests of Northern Greece, involving a farmer whose estranged son returns home and gets involved with his father’s war with the industry trying to drive him out of business. This will open in New York at the Quad Cinema on Friday (as does, apparently, Good Mourning).
Streaming…
KIDS IN THE HALL: COMEDY PUNKS (Amazon)
Reg Harkema’s two-part doc about the Canadian sketch comedy troupe will hit Prime Video this Friday, following the premiere of a new season of shows (all of which are hilarious), and I definitely can recommend this docuseries if you’re a fan of the Kids and want to know more about how their original show came to be. I certainly did not know nearly as much about their time performing at the Rivoli in Toronto or about some of the issues within the group around the time of the movie Brain Candy, but this is just a great companion doc to the great sketch comedy the Kids in the Hall have delivered over the years.
THE VALET (Hulu)
Eugenio Derbez stars in this remake of the French comedy of the same name, playing the title character, Antonio, a poor Latino valet working in L.A. who has an encounter with a superstar actress named Olivia Allan (Samara Weaving) that leads to him being hired by her billionaire boyfriend Vincent Royce (Max Greenfield) to throw his actual wife (Betty Brandt) off from the fact he’s having an affair.
I actually saw the original French movie on which this is based, and I generally liked it enough to not necessarily feel it needed to be remade, but there is something to be said about shifting the story to Hollywood and using it to explore not only the city’s LatinX community but also the social class system between the haves and have-nots, which is much more prevalent in this version of The Valet than the original. Even when Antonio goes to an expensive restaurant on a faux date with Olivia, he is constantly confused for the waiter, and he’s just too kind and quiet to really say anything about it.
The film has quite a potent duo in Derbez and Weaving, the latter doing more comedy than we’ve seen from her in the past. It also has a secret weapon in the supporting cast, particularly the actress playing Antonio’s mother, who has a pretty fun story arc of her own. (One of my one big problems with the movie was seeing Max Greenfield playing another a-hole, because I know he has much more range from his role in My Name is Doris.) While I’m not sure the relationship between Olivia and Antonio is any more believable with the transplanted story, maybe less so, but the filmmakers find a way to incorporate Olivia into Antonio’s family life in a way that makes you believe she’d fall for their charm. Things get more complicated when Antonio’s wife, with whom he’s been separated, starts getting jealous of Antonio’s “upgrade” (not realizing his relationship with Olivia is a sham).
It’s sometimes a little obvious where things are going, yet The Valet is as funny as the original movie, without losing the opportunity to give the premise more weight with a few poignant moments. I really liked Derbez in this role, but I was equally impressed with what director Richard Wong did to balance the different characters, story arcs, and tones, leading up to a fairly satisfying rom-com in the vein of When Harry Met Sally or even Notting Hill.
Rating: 8/10
CHIP ‘N’ DALE: RESCUE RANGERS (Disney+)
Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer of Lonely Island joins with comedian John Mulaney to put a new twist on the Disney Channel animated series, “Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers,” acting as a bit of a requel I guess since Mulaney and Samberg voice the beloved Disney characters but definitely put a Milleniall twist on it that is likely to get it compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The movie takes place some time after Chip and Dale have gone their separate ways with Dale having gone the 3D CG route but Chip staying more traditional. When their friend and former Rescue Ranger Monterey Jack (voiced by Eric Bana) vanishes, Chip and Dale must reunite to find him, learning about an underground “bootlegging” operation run by “Sweet Pete” that alters toons into alternative rip-offs that can be sold in other territories outside America.
I have never watched the “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers,” though I’m familiar enough with the characters, and I decided to check this out, because “why the hell not?” I mean, how bad could it be? I’m not even sure I knew about Samberg or Mulaney’s involvement until I hit “play” – that’s about how much attention I was paying to this D+ exclusive movie.
Having not watched the original cartoon, I really didn’t have much of a personal affection for the characters or concept, but it was pretty obvious that Samberg and Schaffer were trying to instill some of the same levity of their work with Lonely Island. Except they didn’t write this movie, and you can tell, because it’s not particularly funny or original, leaning heavily on the clever cameos by both Disney and non-Disney animated movies. Maybe to some that screams out “Roger Rabbit,” but to me that seems more like Wreck It Ralph or Pixels or movies that would have worked just fine without having to resort to cameos. I won’t spoil them since to some, these cameos will be enough to sate them, but to me, the movie needed to have a better plot or a few more laughs.
Even more annoying about this movie is the decision to mix hand-drawn 2D with 3D animation and live action with Kiki Layne playing Detective Ellie Stickler, who agrees to help Chip and Dale, while the great JK Simmons voices a strange Gumby-looking detective. Maybe this whole line of plot may have been better if it hadn’t been used as recently as Detective Pikachu, which had its own set of problems but had stronger leads. But that aside, the humor is edgier than your usual Disney animated movie, but even toned down, a lot of it just seems like it will go over kids’ heads, even if they do enjoy the hi-jinks.
The fact that this movie was shot by Cinematographer Larry Fong (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Crisis) just shows you how desperate talented crafts people are for work, because I can’t explain any other reason why he’d agree to shoot this.
Rescue Rangers reminded me a bit too much of last year’s Tom and Jerry movie (which I thought was okay) and Space Jam sequel (which was horrid), and it leans so much more towards the latter that I can’t imagine anyone will enjoy it – kids will be confused and most (real) adults will feel that it’s too dumbed down. To me, this was close to unwatchable.
Rating: 5/10
Also hitting streaming this weekend are the Netflix animated series, THE BOSS BABY: BACK IN THE CRIB, which follows up the two popular DreamWorks Animation movies, and also JACKASS 4.5 on Netflix, which is an extended version of the recent Jackass Forever, I think.
Odd and ends…
This year’s 33rd Human Rights Watch Film Festival will run from this Friday to May 26 up at Film at Lincoln Center both in its theaters as well as digitally for those not in New York, as well as downtown at the IFC Center. I’ll be honest that this is not a film festival I normally cover even though they tend to have a pretty amazing variety of films from all over the globe. You can see the full list of movies here.
Hitting theaters via Fathom Events on Tuesday for one night only is Bradley Jackson’s FACING NOLAN (Utopia) about Major League Baseball Hall of Fame legend Nolan Ryan, who is interviewed along with President George W. Bush, Craig Biggio, Steve Buechele, George Brett, Rod Carew, Roger Clemens, Tom Grieve, Tom House, Randy Johnson, Pete Rose, Ivan Rodriguez, Bobby Valentine, Dave Winfield, and others. I’m really not a baseball fan so much, but I can definitely see baseball fans, especially in Texas, being interested in this film.
Repertory stuff…. (Cutting back on this section this week to try to catch up and get this column out.)
“Late Night: Hong Kong Goes International” will screen Ronny Yu’s 1998 horror sequel, Bride of Chucky, Chow Yun Fat’s Bulletproof Monk (2003), and John Woo’s Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible II (2000).
“Playtime: Studio Ghibli” will screen Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) on Friday night and then Yoshifumi Kondo’s Whisper of the Heart (1995) on Saturday (with subtitles) and Sunday (dubbed). “It Happens to Us: Abortion in American Film” continues this weekend with another screening of Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Girl (2014) and Leslie Harris’ Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992)
“Metrograph Presents A to Z” will show four movies this weekend: Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela (2020), Gregory La Cava’s Unfinished Business (1941), Nicholas Ray and Ida Lupino’s On Dangerous Ground (1951), and Roberto Rosselini’s Stromboli (1950). I have never seen any of those. Also, “Stumbling onto Wildness: Cookie Mueller on Film” has a couple repeat showings this weekend.
You can also watch Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth and lots of other things on Metrograph’s Digital Screenings platform, a steal at $5 a month!
The “Voir and Movie Love” series continues with screenings of POint Blank, Unforgiven, 48 Hrs., and Videodrome. Starting Friday, you can see Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Best Picture The Departed and Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible as part of “Two New York Masters.”
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s debut Distant (2002) will screen starting Friday and at Sunday’s Film Forum Jr., you can take the kids to see Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service.
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, David Cronenberg’s Scanners, and the late Satoshi Kon’s animated Paprika and Perfect Blue are all playing this weekend.
On Sunday, Alex Garland’s Annihilation and Birds of America are playing as part of MOMI’s “Science on Screen” series.
ETC…
CORDELIA (Screen Media)
Next week… TOP GUN: MAVERICK is finally released! Also, The Bob’s Burger Movie will try to defeat the curse against feature films based on television animated series.
Box office data provided by The-Numbers.com.
Rescue Rangers coming in hot!