THE WEEKEND WARRIOR April 26, 2024
CHALLENGERS, UNSUNG HERO, BOY KILLS WORLD, ART COLLEGE 1994, HUMANE, THE FEELING THAT THE TIME...
April hasn’t been as bad at the movies as maybe parts of January or February, and there have actually been a lot of movies that I quite liked, which is rarely the case in April, and the month ends with a few movies I like as well… and a couple others.
CHALLENGERS (MGM)
Zendaya, Josh O’Connor (The Crown, Emma.), and Mike Faist (West Side Story) star in the new sports drama from Luca Guadagnino, which revolves around three young tennis players whose relationships are affected by their rise and fall in the world of professional tennis. Zendaya plays Tashi Duncan, a hotshot player who is waylaid by an injury so she takes on the role of coach (and eventually wife and Baby Momma) to Feist’s champ Art Donaldson, whose former best friend and tennis partner Patrick (O’Connor) used to date Tashi and wants her to be his coach as well. This is getting the widest release of a movie this weekend into over 3,000 theaters, and it will be a real test for Zendaya as a box office star, since it’s not relying on IP or other cast.
At this point, Luca Guadagnino may be moving into the ranks of auteurs on par with Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan, and such, without quite having their commercial success. With Challengers, Guadagnino finally makes his first studio film that is likely to be a huge commercial success, despite taking place in the world of tennis, a sport that just hasn’t managed to pull moviegoers into theaters in the past.
Challengers begins in 2019 in New Rochelle, New Jersey, of all places, where the main three characters are reuniting after many years at a “Challengers” tournament where each of them have stakes. For O’Connor’s Patrick, a win over the top player Art Donaldson (Feist) could move him up the rankings to get into some of the bigger Opens, but Art is also fighting for the love of his wife Tashi (Zendaya) who used to be a tennis pro who once dated Patrick. From there, we go back in time to when Patrick and Art were best friends and tennis partners, and Tashi catches their eye as an 18-year-old on the junior circuit. Over the course of the next few years, the relationships change, leading to some friction where Tashi and Art distance themselves from Patrick.
I’ll freely admit that I went into Challengers not knowing which of the two male actors was which, probably because I wasn’t really that familiar with either of them (granted, I *JUST* watched another movie starring O’Connor, but he looks so different in this one, especially in the present day, where he’s far shaggier and less clean cut.)
I don’t need to tell anyone how beautiful and talented Zendaya is, but Guadagnino gets a performance out of her that we hasn’t seen from her outside of Euphoria (though she had some great moments in Dune: Part Two, too). Tashi is just a great role for her, since it allows her to really show off a lot of different sides in a rather complex role that isn’t always the “protagonist” some might be expecting.
The film uses an interesting non-linear technique that jumps from 2019 to earlier encounters in the trio’s lives, including their first meeting at a series of junior matches at the US Open in 2006 where Art and Patrick are doubles partners who end up vying for Tashi’s attention and affection. They end up leaving it to their inevitable faceoff match to decide who gets to woo after (but only after the prelude to a possible three-way that leaves the friends kissing one another ala Y Tu Mama Tambien.)
There’s been a lot of chatter about the “sexiness” inherent in Challengers, and certainly, having three attractive young actors playing these roles does evoke that sense, although there isn’t that much actual sex in this movie, just quite a bit of making out and some removal of clothing.
Being a story set in the world of tennis, that sport needs to be represented in an exciting way, and that’s certainly the case as Guadagnino and his team find new ways to depict the sport on film using interesting camera techniques and editing to keep things moving quite briskly.
The movie gets bonus points for its high-energy soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which brings so much to every scene, but especially the tennis matches, as the duo veer further into electronica – what the kids call “EDM” – and I was quite pleased to see that they released a “MIXED” version of the soundtrack with EDM superstar Boys Noize. This soundtrack is likely to become de rigeur for working out (for those who do that sort of thing).
Challengers is probably Luca Guadagnino’s best film as a director, proving that he really has the ability to tackle any genre in a way that means we could see him taking on bigger studio movies. It’s a fantastic drama which tackles the sport of tennis and the relationships that form in that world in a way we’ve never really seen them before. I can’t wait to see it a second time.
Rating: 8/10
UNSUNG HERO (Lionsgate)
Joel Smallbone of the Christian duo, “for KING & COUNTRY” – I’ve never heard their music but the formatting of their name is enough to get any writer/editor to pull out all their hair – co-wrote, co-directed and stars in this film about his father, David Smallbone, an Australian concert promote who moves to Nashville with his family of eight (with another one on the way) to try to give his career a kickstart. Once there, David finds himself having to do menial jobs while in an environment where the music business is everywhere. Eventually, it becomes the talents of his daughter Rebecca, later to be redubbed “Rebecca St. James,” and her success that gets David and his family back into the music biz, leading to great success in the Christian music realm. Lionsgate will be releasing this into over 2,600 theaters on Friday, and I think that the popularity of the music genre and the artists involved could help Unsung Hero do decently this weekend, though maybe not as well as I Can Only Imagine.
Mini-Review: This is turning out to be an interesting year, where I’ve now seen three faith-based films that actually weren’t so bad. None of them hit you over the head with the faith aspects of it, although Unsung Hero is about a very religious Christian family, who do turn to prayer when things get bad.
I’ll freely admit whenever I thought about that being Joel portraying his father and directing a young actor playing himself, I had a hard time imagining he would want to make sure his younger self looked better. Even though his father story would be considered inspirational in its positive message, he doesn’t portray his father like some kind of saint, frequently pushing his family while dealing with his own frustrations about how poorly things go once they get to Nashville, doing odd jobs like cleaning houses.
Otherwise, this follows a fairly traditional music biopic with all the inherent drama and expected ups and downs, eventually leading to the family finding musical success. The screenplay is just okay and Smallbone isn’t that great an actor, especially compared to Daisy Betts as his pregnant wife, Helen, who really is the rock that keeps the family motivated to support their father.
Granted, if this not for this film, I probably would never have heard of St. James or her brothers, and I’m not sure the movie does much to get me to want to explore their music, but that probably isn’t the point, as much as for Joel to tell his father’s story and how pivotal it was to his family’s rise to fame in that world. There’s a good deal of singing and quite a bit of praying, but the latter never gets ridiculous, just that the family does frequently turn to prayer when things aren’t going well financially.
In some ways, as someone who has had my own financial difficulties as recently as… RIGHT NOW… I fully understand what the Smallbones were going through on arriving in Nashville and not being able to make ends meet with 8 mouths to feed and another on the way.
That doesn’t necessarily make Unsung Hero a rags to riches movie, as much as it is an inspirational story about how when things seem to be at their worst, something comes along that can help pull you up from the doldrums, and for that reason alone, it’s a commendable addition to this very specific faith-based sub-genre.
Rating: 7/10
BOY KILLS WORLD (Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate)
German-born filmmaker Moritz Mohr makes his feature film directorial debut with this violent and gory action-thriller starring Bill Skarsgård from It and Barbarian as “Boy,” a deaf/mute boy who watched his mother and sister be killed by the evil Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) in his country’s annual “Culling,” as he’s also left for dead. Swearing revenge, he goes through rigorous training so that decades later, he goes after the woman responsible, only to have to deal with more evil doings by her family. The movie will be released nationwide into roughly 2,500 theaters on Friday.
Not knowing much about Mohr going into this movie – I had seen the trailer once or twice, maybe – I wasn’t fully sure what to expect, because it starts very much in a world not too far removed from the one in The Hunger Games movies, but then it gets into territory closer to the recent Monkey Man.
The younger version of Boy (played by Nicholas and Cameron Crovetti) is put through rigorous training by Shaman (Yayan Ruhian) out in the woods but decades later, he returns to the city to get his revenge on the Van Der Koys. Along the way, he gets some help from an odd couple of characters, played by Andrew Koji and Isiah Mustafa, and it wouldn’t really be an action movie without an appearance by Sharlto Copley, who plays one of the first Van Der Koys we meet. (Others are played by Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, and Jessica Rothe gets into the most action as the enigmatic June 27, who may be part cyborg.)
But the oddest thing you’ll immediately realize is that playing a mute means that Bill Skarsgård won’t have any lines, and in fact, the film is narrated by H. Jon Benjamin from Archer and Bob’s Burgers, who voices what Boy is thinking… but in the voice of one of those arcade game voice-overs who do the “Fight!” part in Street Fighter type games. Those aren’t necessarily my favorite types of games, but I get the appeal and how Mohr and his writing collaborators wanted to include them in their mélange of ideas.
You first realize how gory the movie is going to get with the (inadvertent) death of one of the first people Boy encounters, and though the movie never quite reaches Terrifier level of gore (thankfully), the violence is definitely as R-rated as one can get. And yet, Boy Kills World is rife with humor in every scene and never takes itself too seriously ala John Wick or Monkey Man, in terms of the revenge aspect of the story, because the world in which Boy and the Van der Koys live is so deliberately outlandish at times.
Boy Kills World is such a strange but amusing take on a number of genres we’ve seen quite a lot recently, but the reason it’s so entertaining is that it’s never afraid to really go over-the-top either with the action or the strangeness of the humor
Rating: 7/10
You can also watch my interview with the director over at Cinema Daily US probably later today.
Also, this weekend will see anniversary re-releases of Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror and sci-fi classic Alien, as well as the great 1999 remake of The Mummy, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in a week or so. I think the former could break into the top 10 even though re-releases haven’t been doing that well this year.
THE BOX OFFICE CHART
1. Challengers (MGM) - $15.8 million N/A
2. Unsung Hero (Lionsgate) - $8.2 million N/A
3. Civil War (A24) - $6 million -46%
4. Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire (Warner Bros.) - $5.5 million -43%
5. Boy Kills World (Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate) - $5.3 million N/A
6. Abigail (Universal) - $5 million -52%
7. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Lionsgate) - $4.3 million
8. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal) - $3.5 million -25%
9. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) - $2.9 million -35%
10. Alien 40th Anniversary (20th Century/Disney) - $2.3 million N/A
ART COLLEGE 1994 (Dekanalog)
I love the fact that Metrograph regularly features films from China, and this animated movie by Liu Jian (Have a Nice Day) is another potentially interesting look at a very specific culture in China during a very specific time – the Chinese art student of the ‘90s.
I’ll freely admit that it took me a little bit of time to really get into this one, which follows a number of art students – two male artists and two female musicians – as they go through their day-to-day at school. The big problem is that the film is paced like a French film with a lot of talking in every scene, and while Jian’s dialogue is quite commendable, not everything they talk about maintains the viewer’s interest.
In some ways, the film reminded me of the films of Richard Linklater, since he frequently has done movies about young people and school, but the setting also reminded me of Art School Confidential, a 2006 collaboration between Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes, who did Ghost World earlier.
The film eventually did grow on me as I got to know the four main young people, though not everything they have to say will be of that much interest, since it’s so specific to the time and region. It’s a more subdued use of animation than maybe we see over here, but it’s another example of how that medium can be used to tell a (presumably) personal story, not unlike Linklater’s animated films.
Rating: 6.5/10
Art School 1994 will be premiering at the Metrograph on Friday, as part of “Liu Jian X2” along with the filmmaker’s 2017 film, Have a Nice Day, which will be available to watch for members on the At Home platform. (For the life of me, I can’t remember if I’ve actually seen that, though I have a feeling it may have played at Fantasia.)
HUMANE (IFC Films/Shudder)
Caitlin Cronenberg, who is indeed the daughter of legendary horror master David Cronenberg, makes her feature film directorial debut with the fifth or sixth movie just this month to take place in a possibly dystopian future. This one involves a wealthy family convening for a dinner where the patriarch of the family (Peter Gallagher) tells his children that he has decided to volunteer for the country’s recruitment to euthanize people in order to prevent overpopulation (just like “The Culling” in this week’s Boy Kills World, ironically.)
I’ve been enough of a life-long fan of David Cronenberg that when another family member goes into filmmaking, it’s going to be of interest, although Humane is not a horror film in the same sense as the films of the master or even his son, Brandon Cronenburg’s offerings like last year’s Infinity Pool.
In fact, it’s more of a family drama with thriller elements for the first half at least, as we meet the members of the well-to-do but dysfunctional York family, including Jay Baruchel’s Jared, his sisters Rachel and Mia (Emily Hampshire and Sirena Gulamgaus), as they convene for a family meal. At that meal, their father Charles (Gallagher) tells the family that he and his wife Dawn (Uni Park) have volunteered for euthanasia. Soon, a group of uniformed men show up to perform the procedure for voluntary euthanasia, and that’s when things get more interesting.
Those uniformed men responsible for “recruiting” are led by Enrico Colantoni’s Bob, who was my favorite part of the movie, especially his scenes with the young Mia, who he essentially kidnaps, since he showed up expecting two recruits, but Dawn has left before they arrive. Otherwise, this is mostly a one-location drama where the family tries to figure out how to appease the obligations they made.
I will admit to being more than a little disappointed that Caitlin Cronenberg decided to branch away from her father and brother Brandon’s horror proclivities, although there is still quite a bit of gore and violence as Humane approaches its final act. The screenplay by Michael Sparaga only goes so far, because the premise just isn’t that strong, and few of the actors besides Colantoni really stand out in their performances. It’s also unclear whether any of this is supposed to be humorous, since that aspect doesn’t work as well as something like Robert Schwartzman’s The Argument or Ike Barinholtz’s The Oath from a few weeks back, the latter which does far more interesting things with a similar politically-tinged comedic premise
Humane isn’t bad as a thriller, and Caitlin Cronenberg does a decent job directing it, though there likely will be some disappointment from those who go into it with certain expectations from her evocative surname.
Rating: 6/10
Humane is opening at the IFC Center in New York on Friday (as is the film below), as well as in other major cities, including a few in Canada, too.
THE FEELING THAT THE TIME TO DO SOMETHING HAS PASSED (Magnolia)
I wasn’t really familiar with the work of New York indie filmmaker Joanna Arnow before hearing about her new movie, which premiered at Cannes Director’s Fortnight last year, though I guess if I was more curious, I could check out three earlier films screening as part of Metrograph’s At Home platform. Though after watching The Feeling That Movie Titles Shouldn’t Be This Effin’ Long, I’m not sure I care enough to watch any of her other work.
In the movie, which Arnow wrote and directed, she plays Ann – I only know this from IMDB, since I’m not sure her name is actually ever stated – who goes from one toxic relationship to another, from her love life to her job and family. Ann is a submissive, so being demeaned by the men in her life is standard for her, and that’s probably why I just couldn’t get into this movie whatsoever, since this is a lifestyle that I don’t fully comprehend its appeal.
Listen, I’m not going to be the male critic who makes snarky comments about Arnow’s body or the fact that she spends so much of her narrative feature debut fully nude, but it’s hard not to talk about this movie without mentioning that fact. We meet her character as she’s curled up naked on a bed next to her current boyfriend, Allen (Scott Cohen), and he’s more than willing to boss her around and make her do things to fulfill her submissive needs.
For whatever reason, he Feeling is being sold as a comedy, but I couldn’t find anything even remotely funny about any of it, even when her actual family is brought into the story. I never was quite sure if Arnow was playing a version of herself (ala the equally erratic Lena Dunham), but the film jumps around her different worlds with none of them really connecting. Watching her being mistreated by her partners in lieu of foreplay just never really did much for me. At least her last boyfriend Chris (Babak Tafti) is a little better than the rest, but like everything else, it never really goes anywhere or reaches any sort of satisfying resolution.
Probably the nicest surprise is seeing Michael Cyril Creighton from Only Murders in the Building playing Ann’s boss, but like everything else in Arnow’s film, he only shows up for a few short scenes, then her short attention span is moving onto something else.
I just struggled to find anything to enjoy about Ms. Arnow’s film, which seemed like little more than an absolutely pointless and useless exercise, a boring non-story that may be too personal for others to fully appreciate what the filmmaker was trying to convey.
Rating: 4/10
A couple interesting international genre films that I didn’t have time to watch/review, include…
DANCING VILLAGE: THE CURSE BEGINS (Lionsgate)
This Indonesian horror-thriller from Kimo Stamboel (The Queen of Black Magic) is actually a prequel to 2022’s Kkn Di Desa Penari, which was the highest-grossing film in Indonesian history, and it’s the first film made specifically for IMAX made in Southeast Asia. It involves a women named Mila, who is advised by a shaman to return a mystical bracelet to Kawaturih, the “Dancing Village” on the tip of Java Island. She goes on a trip with her cousin and friends to the island, only to arrive at Kawaturih and realize the elder has died with all sorts of other strange occurences taking place. This is opening in a number of cities, though at least at New York’s AMC Empire, it doesn’t seem to be screening in IMAX.
INFESTED (Shudder)
Sébastien Vaniček’s French horror film is coming out so close to the recent Sting with a similar plot involving a spider that someone brings home as a pet, only for it to escape and start reproducing to turn the entire building into a trap full of venomous spiders. It surrounds soon to be 30-year-old Kaleb, who initially brings the spider back to his apartment, because he’s lonely. This will hit the streamer, Shudder, on Friday.
And other films I didn’t get to…
UNCROPPED (Greenwich)
CASH OUT (Saban Films)
BLOODLINE KILLER (Vertical Entertainment)
BREATHE (Capstone)
NOWHERE SPECIAL (Cohen Media Group)
NYC REPERTORY
Besides playing Liu Jian’s Have a Nice Day (2017) as part of the release of his newest movie, Art College 1994, the month of April will end with a number of series wrapping up in advance of new series for May and June.
“Filmcraft: Frederick Elmes” concludes this weekend with multiple screenings of David Lynch’s 1986 classic Blue Velvet (shot by Elmes) – sadly, this will be a 4k DCP rather than 35mm – a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s Night On Earth (1991), and a couple more screenings of Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972), which Elmes selected as part of his series.
“Novel Encounters: The Films of Lee Chang-Dong” will screen July Jung’s 2014 movie A Girl at My Door (produced by Lee Chang-Dong) and the director’s film Poetry (2010) this weekend, and then a few last repeats (like Green Fish and A Brand New Life) early next week.
“Bad Actress” ends with one final screening of John Cassavetes’ Opening Night (1977) on Thursday (tonight) at 6pm!
One of my favorite films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s Delicatessen (1991) will run this weekend to wrap-up “Animal Farm: Pigs,” but only twice, pretty late on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Al Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975), directed by Sydney Lumet, will run as part of
“Also Starring… John Cazale” one more time on Sunday and then a couple times next week.
Tonight, you can see Alan Parker’s Birdy as part of the “1984 Milestone Movies Indies and Auteurs Week” with Matthew Modine on-hand for a QnA. On Sunday, the “Academy Musuem Branch Selects” series continues with Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942), starring Bette Davis, presented by the Costume Designers Branch. On Friday, the Paris will be showing David Lynch’s Dune from 1984, The Never-Ending Story, and This is Spinal Tap, also as part of the “1984 Milestone Movies,” then Saturday, it’s The Killing Fields, A Passage to India (in 35mm), and Starman, then there will be repeats of The Never-Ending Story and Spinal Tap on Sunday, as well as a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander from 1983, the latter in 35mm.
The Ken Loach retrospective continues through May 2 with a lot of great films of the British filmmaker that rarely get theatrical showings here, and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï also continues for the same period of time. This Sunday’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the Oscar-winning Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman.
Running from Friday, April 26, through Tuesday, April 30, is “Hamaguchi I & II,” showing all of the Oscar-winning Japanese auteur Ryûsuke (Drive My Car) Hamaguchi’s films, including the North American premiere of his 2023 film Gift with a live score by composer Eiko Ishibashi, leading up to the release of Hamaguchi’s new film, Evil Does Not Exist, which opens on May 3 with Hamaguch and Ishibashi on-hand for QnAs. I’ll have more on that movie in next week’s column.
Besides screening the 2002 Scooby Doo movie on 35mm on Friday and Saturday nights (at 11:30pm, too late for the kiddies), as part of “The Red Eye” program, they’ll be showing Multiple Maniacs and Polyester as part of a series celebrating this week’s birthday boy, John Waters. Also playing late on Friday and Saturday night, and definitely NOT for the kiddies.
Our pals at The Film Stage are presenting screenings of Bernardo Bonello’s 2011 film, House of Tolerance, in 35mm on Thusrday and Friday nights, and the “One Grand Film Society” is presenting screenings of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds from 1966 in 35mm on Thursday and Saturday.
MoMI is screening Rocko Zevenbergen’s 2020 film, I Need You Dead!, as part of its “Disreputable Cinema” series on Saturday evening with the filmmaker there in person, plus they’re rescreening James Cameron’s The Abyss: Special Edition on Sunday afternoon.
Next week, it’s May.. and the summer movie season kicks off… with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in David Leitch’s The Fall Guy!