The Weekend Warrior April 7, 2023
Reviews of Paint, Joyland, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and Showing Up, Plus More!
Another week, another attempt to come up with something resembling a weekly column, although I’ve been getting in the practice of writing more separate reviews for the bigger movies, and that may continue.
I actually got to watch a bunch of screeners this week, but what I didn’t get to watch was…
THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (Universal)
Not much more to say about this one. I decided not to review it, since I plan to see it on Friday with a friend of mine when I go home to Columbus, Ohio. It’s already doing well on its first day (it opened Wednesday) and should continue to do so.
AIR (Amazon Studios)
Likewise, I already reviewed this and wrote about its box office prospects for Above the Line and Gold Derby, so I don’t have much more to say about it, so let’s just get to one of the movies I’ve watched but haven’t reviewed yet, k?
PAINT (IFC Films)
Owen Wilson stars as Carl Nargle, Vermont’s renowned Burlington, Vermont public television painter ala Bob Ross, in Brit McAdams’ light comedy about how Carl starts feeling the pressure from the growing popularity of a hot new and younger painter named Ambrosia (Ciara Renée) and how that shakes up his station and its close-knit community.
I only really heard about this movie fairly recently, and honestly, I thought that this was written and directed by a woman. Nope, Brit is a dude. This isn’t his first feature, but it might as well be, since he’s mainly been doing television in recent years. Besides Wilson, the movie also stars the always-great Stephen Root, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and one of the most underrated actresses working today (in my opinion), Michaela Watkins.
Wilson’s Nargle is almost a Will Ferrell type of charcter since he essentially has one joke, where he seems quite oblivious to other’s feelings. It’s never quite clear why so many women are constantly falling in love with him, but much of the story involves this love triangle formed between Carl, Ambrosia, and Carl’s ex and the station manager Katherine (Watkins).
McAdams does a decent job with getting the most out of a decent cast, even if it’s generally a pretty shallow and inconsequential movie. In fact, Paint is often more sad than actually funny, but Wilson and the rest of the cast do a good job holding things together, making for a sweet if not particularly deep light comedy (with quite a small “c”).
Rating: 7/10
Here is what the top 10 should look like, with the caveat that I already had some idea how much two of the new movies made on Wednesday, and I may have changed my weekend predictions slightly based on it.
1. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal) - $85 million N/A (This is projected to make somewhere between $26 and 30 million or more on Wednesday.)
2. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Paramount) - $19.3 million -48%
3. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate) - $15.2 million -46%
4. Air (Amazon Studios/MGM) - $10.2 million N/A (Estimated to make $3.5 million on Wednesday)
5. Scream VI (Paramount) - $3.2 million -40%
6. His Only Son (Angel Studios) - $3 million -45%
7. Creed III (MGM) - $2.8 million -44%
8. Paint (IFC Films) - $2.4 million N/A
9. Shazam! Fury of the Gods (New Line/WB) - $2.3 million -50%
10. A Thousand and One (Focus Features) - $1 million -42%
Two really good movies worth checking out are opening in limited release this weekend… definitely try to seek them out!
JOYLAND (Oscilloscope)
From Pakisatan, comes that country’s selection for the Oscars, which got shortlisted but not nominated, with Saim Sadiq’s drama opening at the Film Forum in New York City on Friday and in L.A. on April 21, as well as other areas after an extensive festival run. The movie stars Ali Junejo as Haider, a recently-married man who needs to get a job, so he takes one as a back-up dancer for the transgender Biba (Alina Khan), though he ends up falling in love with her, which just makes things more difficult at home, as these things often do.
Alina Khan is quite good as Biba, a real taskmaster of a boss with her background dancers, but her and Haider make a cute couple, just as he does with his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq). In fact, the movie is just as much about Mumtaz and her frustrations due to her husband's lack of attention even after she gets pregnant, since he’s off dancing. (That job doesn’t go over well with Haider’s family either, because this is Pakistan and they frequently frown and even condemn on LGBTQ+ matters.)
This is just a fantastic film that deals with the complexities of sexuality and gender in such a conservative, represeed and strict place like Pakistan, to the point where Biba is constantly being misgendered. Even though Haider is married, there’s an aspect to his relationship that makes one wonder whether he’s always been in the closet. In many ways, this reminded me of Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca, because Biba desperately wants to have a normal relationship but knows how difficult (or even impossible) that is in her country with all the preconceptions about her.
Joyland may be a bit grimmer than the title suggests, but ultimately, it’s another fantastic film about a place so different from our own. Sadiq is definitely a filmmaking talent to watch, as are his cast.
Rating: 8/10
(I still can’t figure out why Oscilloscope didn’t try to release this a week earlier to coincide with International Transgender Day of Awareness, since it would be so apt.)
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (NEON)
Opening in an unknown number of theaters but probably limited for now is Daniel Goldhaber’s ecological thriller about a group of individuals who decide to (spoiler) blow up a pipeline to disrupt the oil flow in Texas that’s causing so much death and illness.
Based on the book by Andreas Malm and adapted by Goldhaber with Jordan Sjol and Ariela Barer, who also plays Xochitl, this is a true ensemble piece with a great cast that includes Sasha Lane (American Honey) as Theo, who is in a relationship with Alisha (Jayme Lawson); indigenous actor Forrest Goodluck as Michael, the group’s explosives expert; Dwayne, the older gun-toting member of the group; the couple Rowan and Logan (Kristine Froseth and Lukas Gage), who just seem to be there to have fun.
There have been other movies about ecological terrorists, including the not-so-great Night Moves by Kelly Reichardt, who, ironically, has a new movie out this week, too. This is just so much better, even if Lane and Lawson were the only actors I was familiar with beforehand. I particularly liked Goodluck’s character since he seems quite intense, and I was equally impressed that Barer was involved in the adaptation process.
Goldhaber has the benefit of this terrific young cast that delivers such consistently great performances. Each of them have their moments to shine, whether it’s in the flashbacks that focuses on each individual or during the disruptive action they’re trying to pull off.
The filmmaker also brilliantly builds the tension as the group tries to pull off this bit of sabotage and things start to go wrong, with an appropriately driving score by Gavin Brivik, that really keeps the viewer on their toes about what might happen next.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a taut and timely thriller that belies the fact that you might think you know exactly what to expect merely from the title. There’s just a whole lot more to what Goldhaber and his talented cast are able to do with this simple premise that makes for a far more compelling film than I expected.
Rating: 8/10
SHOWING UP (A24)
Kelly Reichardt’s newest movie stars her frequent collaborator Michelle Williams playing Lizzy, a sculptor and art teacher, who has to deal with a number of issues, including a lack of hot water in her house shared with her uncaring landlady (Hong Chau), who also happens to be a successful artist.
I feel like I had the same problem with this movie as I’ve had with many of Ms. Reichardt’s films, and that is the lack of a strong story in favor of just watching a bunch of characters interacting, not necessarily in very interesting ways. In this case, the cast includes André Benjamin and even Judd Hirsch shows up playing Lizzy’s father, though he doesn’t have anywhere the impact that he does in his small role in Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.
Williams gives another solid performance, as does Chau, but there was very little about this artist community that really connected with me and made me want to know more about them. When the two women start caring for an injured pigeon, I didn’t think that this would become a central plot point, but the film just generally kind of meanders around them and then ends at Lizzy’s big showing with the pigeon being let loose and flying around.
While First Cow was definitely a step forward in the right direction for Reichardt, Showing Up just feels like a step back. There really is very little that terrific actors like Williams or Chau can bring to the mix to make it any more interesting than it may have been on paper.
Rating: 6/10
A couple movies I wasn’t able to get to, but have screeners for and hope to watch soon…
RIDE ON (Well Go USA)
Jackie Chan stars in this new action-comedy directed by Larry Yang, playing a stuntman who has debt collectors wanting to seize his horse, but instead, the two of them go on the run with the video going viral. I have to imagine Well Go will release this in a couple hundred theaters in major cities.
ONE TRUE LOVES (The Avenue)
Written by New York Times bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid (who also wrote the book on which the terrific new Prime Video series, Daisy Jones & the Six, is basee), this modern twist on the rom-com, directed by Andy Fickman, stars Simu Liu, Phillipa Soo, and Luke Bracey. This love triangle rom-com focuses on Emma, a woman who has to choose between her husband Jesse (Bracey), thought to have died in a helicopter crash, and her best friend and fiancé Sam (Liu) who brought her back to life after his death. This will be in theaters on Friday and then hit digital on April 14.
While you wait for my thoughts, here’s the trailer…
And the usual repertory stuff. Kinda makes me wish I was in New York City this weekend ‘cause there’s always cool stuff going on here.
This weekend’s “Filmcraft” has a special guest in filmmaker and cinematographer Reed Morano, showing some of the movies she’s directed like 2015’s Meadowland, starring Luke Wilson and Olivia Wilde, and I Think We’re Alone Now (2018), starring Peter Dinklage, as well as some of her favorites like Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984). Ms. Morano will be there on Friday night for a QnA for Meadowland and intros.
Sports and baseball fans should be thrilled with the Metrograph’s newest “Put Me in Coach! Baseball on Screen,” which this weekend will screen Kevin Costner’s For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi.
Another fun series going on this weekend is “Animal Farm: Donkeys,” which will screen Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966).
“Also Starring… Karen Black” will screen Robert Altman’s Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982).
“Metrograph Presents A to Z” is off this weekend, though it will screen Hong Sang-Soo’s On the Beach At Night Alone (2017) and Icarus XB-1 (1963) on Monday.
Lensed by Agnès Godard also continues with screenings of Claire Denis’ Beau Travail (1999) and Trouble Every Day (2001)
Nathaniel Kahn’s My Architect (2003) is being shown at Film Forum in a new DCP restoration twenty years after it first played at Film Forum. Bertolucci’s The Conformist continues to run, while this Easter Sunday’s “Film Forum Jr.” is Invaders from Mars (1953). Harold Lloyd also has a retrospective which will include For Heaven’s Sake (1926) with piano accompaniment on Saturday, 1922’s Dr. Jack on Sunday
Showing all weekend is a new 4k restoration of the Director’s Cut of Greg Araki’s 1995 film, The Doom Generation, with Araki doing a QnA and intro on Friday, plus he’s also screening one of my all-time faves, Jonathan Demme’s excellent Something Wild (1986) in 35mm on Friday night. Richard LInklater’s Before Midnight (2013) will also screen all weekend, as will the other two movies in that series. Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (1988) will screen late night on Friday and Saturday.
They’re doing a “Modern Matinees” retrospective of Errol Flynn, this weekend 1938’s Four’s A Crowd and They Died with their Boots On (1941) on Thursday and Friday. (These generally run Weds through Friday at 1pm with the Errol Flynn program running through the end of the month.)
They’re focusing on a rather elitist movie snob series called “Jeanne Dielman and Its Roots” based on the fact that Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles topped the Sight and Sound list. Seriously, yawn. This weekend, they’re playing Agnès Varda’s 1965 film, Le bonheur, Moses and Aaron (1975), and Carl Dreyer’s Gertrud (1964), as well as Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), and Jeanne Dielman itself.
Some amazing movies showing in 35mm including The Terminator (1984) on Thursday and Jane Fonda’s Barbarella (1968) on Friday and then on Saturday and Sunday, it screens Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and The Flowers of St. Francis (1950). I really picked a bad weekend to go away.
A few movies I just couldn’t get to this week…but mainly streamers and digital releases.
BIG SHARK — This is the new movie from Tommy Wiseau of The Room and I’m kinda intrigued.
BLOOD COVERED CHOCOLATE (Terror Films)
A HANDFUL OF WATER (Indiepix Films)
ON A WING AND A PRAYER (Prime Video)
PILGRIMS (Dekanalog)
Next week, a lot of interesting movies including Universal’s horror-comedy Renfield, Russell Crowe’s The Pope’s Exorcist, the anime Suzume, Bleecker Street’s Mafia Mamma, starring Toni Collette, and a basketball drama called Sweetwater. I’ve reviewed one of them. I hope to get to the rest.