The Weekend Warrior August 4, 2023
STREETWISE, SHORTCOMINGS, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM, MEG 2: THE TRENCH, DREAMIN’ WILD
We’re going to do things a little different this week, and we’ll start with this week’s “Chosen One,” which to be perfectly honest, opened a few weeks ago, but I somehow missed it even though it was playing just a block over from me. I mean, it does happen that I miss a movie or two when I have other things going on in my life, and I’m not staying on top of this column, but this one was a real doozy, because it would be the “Chosen One” in any week it’s released.
STREETWISE (Dekanalog)
I was seeing trailers for Jiazuo Na’s whimsical Chinese drama (yes, I realize the dichotomy of that statement) in front of other movies at the Metrograph for weeks without even realizing what it was. I did see there was a movie I didn’t know in Metrograph’s “Neon Noir” series, and eventually, I just had a slot open and went over to check it out. Little did I know that it was going to be the last screening at Metrograph, but it was packed, and they booked another screening. But it’s also opening in L.A. on Friday at the Laemmle Royal, and I cannot recommend this movie enough, especially to fans of Asian cinema (of which I am one).
I still didn’t know much about it going in, including the fact that it debuted at Cannes in 2021, but I watched as we met a couple of hustlers and thugs trying to collect money owed to their boss. One of them is Dong Zi (Ling Jiuxiao), a naive 21-year-old who has a crush on a local tattoo artist (played by the beautiful Miyi Huang) while also dealing with overbearing crime boss father (Qi Zhi), who disapproves of his son’s love interest but is also ailing and possibly at death’s door. Most of Zi’s criminal activities are done to help pay for his father’s medical treatment, despite the horrid treatment, he receives from his father.
This is by no means a comedy, and yet, it has more than a few humorous situations, and in many ways, it reminded me of some of the best work by the Coens, since it takes place in the grimy world of crime in this smaller Chinese town. Ling Jiuxiao is fantastic in the lead role, but it was Miyi Huang who really blew me away with her performance, which definitely feels more difficult, since she has to decide between the lovable Zi and her abusive husband (who happens to be a mob boss himself).
Like the recent The Beasts, there’s a really shocking turn going into the last act, and it’s one that really clinched it for me that Na is a filmmaker to watch, if he (or she?) could deliver such a poignant piece of cinema the first time out of the gate. Streetwise turned out to be a pleasant surprise that I did not see coming, but it quickly became one of my favorite movies of the year just by the nature of the storytelling and the filmmaking and how the actors pull you into the lives of these particular characters. If you’re in L.A., you’ll have a week to watch it, and New Yorkers, there’s just that one screening, but I have to urge you not to miss this one. You can see where else it’s playing here.
Rating: 9/10
Since we’re discussing a Dekanalog release…here’s another one..
MEN OF DEEDS (Dekanalog)
Opening at the Quad Cinema on Friday (and then in L.A. on Aug. 18) is this Romanian police drama from Paul Negoescu (Two Lotter Tickets), following a middle-aged police chief, played by Iulian Postelnicu, who works in a small town where he deals with drunken conflicts and a corrupt and questionable mayor (Vasile Muraro). Things are rather idyllic until someone is murdered and he has to start doing his job better than ever before. I haven’t seen this yet, but if this crime noir is any bit as good as Streetwise, Dekanalog may have another winner.
Keeping things going in this upside-down column with some repertory stuff…
Starting on Friday is “Jean Grémillion X2,” which was the series title would imply is showing two French films from director Jean Grémillion: The Strange Mister Victor (1938), which I haven’t seen, and Lady Killer (1937), which I have. Lady Killer was quite good, a bit of a noir drama involving the relationship between a chronic ladies’ man (Jean Gabin) who decides to seduce a beautiful woman he meets at a casino (Mireille Balin) but instead falls for her, as well as for her tricks.
Another awesome series starting this weekend is “Back to School with Kirsten Dunst,” which is pretty much what it sounds like with showings of Bring It On and Drop Dead Gorgeous, plus more movies over the following weekends.
Another series of which I’m not quite as familiar is “Straub-Huilet Pillars,” which will run in theater and on Metrograph’s digital platform. Unfortunately, I know nothing about this husband-wife filmmaking duo, but you can click on the series and maybe check out some of their ‘70s movies.
“Also Starring… Yaphet Koto” continues this weekend with another screening of Midnight Run tonight, and then screenings of Ridley Scott’s classic, Alien (1979), on Friday and Sunday and a couple times next week.
I’ll be seeing the final screening of David Lynch’s Dune tonight, as part of “Dynamic Dino: Select Films from DeLaurentiis,” and then Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Running Man, will play a few times this weekend.
The seemingly never-ending “My Trip to Italy” series actually will play all three chapters of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy this weekend with Sunday featuring the director’s edit of The Godfather Chapter III. (As of now, Chapter 2 is sold out for the weekend but it plays again on Tuesday. Also showing the 2016 movie, Happy Times Will Come Soon from director Alessandro Comodin, which I’ve never seen.
Some great stuff in the “Neon Noir” series this weekend, including Michael Mann’s Thief (1981), another great Chinese crime-drama The Wild Goose Lake from Yi’nan Diao, and another screening of the original Ghost in the Shell.
Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise (1991), starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, will be screening in a new 4k restoration from Park Circus. This Sunday, Film Forum starts a new series of 3D films called “A Deeper Look,”, beginning this Sunday with Robot Monster (1953) and having a new 3D movie every Monday night through November.
“Nicolas Cage Midnights” screens Con Air and National Treasure this weekend, and the IFC Center is also screening Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch (2011) on Friday and Saturday nights with a video intro from Snyder himself.
Starting Friday is the new series “Beautiful Binoche,” a retrospective of the popular and talented actress that runs until August 10 before her new movie, Between Two Worlds, opens on Aug. 11. This weekend, you can see The Unbearable Lightness of Being from 1988, as well as Damage, Three Colors: Blue, Caché, and more going into next week.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) will screen as part of the Roxy’s “Summer of Sequels,” while Wong Kar-Wai’s Blueberry Nights (2007) will screen as part of “Heaven or Las Vegas.” The musical Bloodhounds of Broaday (1989) also screens this weekend, as well as the comedy Shadow and Fog, and one more screening of the Western Rio Bravo, courtesy of my pals at The Film Stage.
Continuing this week is Real Rap: Hip-Hop Star Power on Screen, which screens Hype Williams’ Belly (1998) on Friday.
Hey, guess what? I LIED!!! This week’s “Chosen One” is really…
SHORTCOMINGS (Sony Pictures Classics)
I was pretty excited to see Randall Park’s feature directorial debut at the virtual Sundance in January, and even moreso when I learned he had directed an adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s comics which were serialized in Tomine’s comic “Optic Nerve” with Tomine writing the screenplay.
It’s a romantic dramedy of sorts with Justin H. Min from After Yang and Beef playing Ben Tanaka, who is going through a rough time, having to manage a movie theater with an obnoxious staff (including Jacob Batalan from the recent Spider-Man movies being particularly funny), but also a girlfriend Miko (played by the terrific Ally Maki from Hacks) who may be dissatisfied with their relationship and Ben’s constant moping. Another prominent character is Ben’s best friend and lesbian Alice, as played by the brilliantly-funny Sherry Cola from Joy Ride. Ben finds himself at odds when first Miko goes to New York City “for an internship,” and then Alice goes there just to get out of the Bay Area.
Even though there are aspects to the movie that some might find dreary, and it’s very Adrian Tomine-esque (a pretty decent adaptation of his own work), but it also harks back to a classic like Ghost World but also maybe a little closer to Wilson, since Ben can be unpleasant at times, and not everyone will root for him. (I have a feeling women especially will hate this.) That said, Min is terrific, and I liked his performance in this more than After Yang, especially as he casually hits on Autumn, a pretty new employee at the theater, and Cola continues to be a comedy force unlike anything else we’ve seen this year.
But it also deals with serious topics like inter-Asian relations, since Ben is Japanese and Alice’s family is Korean, so there’s still a bit of friction there dating back to WWII. The movie loses a little as it goes along, but Park seems perfectly-suited for the material with his style of humor. He even brings on his Veep co-star Timothy Simmons in a very funny role (and Park makes a small cameo himself).
With the caveat that Shortcomings might not be for everyone, and maybe not even for every Asian-American (the movie takes a deliberate shot at Crazy Rich Asians in its first five minutes), it’s still a terrific and quite funny character study that shows Park has a great knack for putting together the proper cast to tell such a quirky story.
Rating: 8/10
My interview with Randall Park is up over at Above the Line. (Oops, this is the second weekend in a row where I reviewed something I already had reviewed out of Sundance, but honestly, too many critics/movie writers go to these festivals, write their reviews in January and never mention the movie again once it gets a theatrical release. I am not like that.)
I’m sure you’re all here to hear about the two big releases, so I might as well get to those, huh?
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM (Paramount)
Not too long after the last iteration of the characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird comes this new animated movie from The Mitchells vs. the Machines director Jeff Rowe (who I interviewed for Below the Line), co-written and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, which hit theaters on Wednesday with previews on Tuesday.
I have never really been a TMNT fan, even though I used to have a few of Eastman and Laird’s early comics. I just wasn’t the right age to get into the movies from the ‘90s or the cartoons or the Archie Comics, so because of that, I have just a tangential knowledge of the Turtles and the various enemies they’ve faced, and I’m always quite surprised that the comics are still going quite strongly. I can’t remember if I saw the animated TMNT from 2007, and whether I saw both of the Michael Bay-produced live action movies from more recently, but none of them really got me excited about the concept of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That said, I’ve loved the movies and many of the shows that Rogen/Goldberg have written, produced and directed, so I definitely was gonna give this the benefit of the doubt.
Turns out that Rowe was the perfect person to direct this movie, because he maintains a lot of what people have loved about pretty iterations, but also makes this a much more palatable introduction for new viewers. First of all, it shows the Turtles’ origins, which I’m not sure I ever knew, but also casts a bunch of young teenage actors to voice Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and… the fourth one. Honestly, I’m so not into TMNT that I’m surprised I remembered three of their names.
In this case, they have to find and stop the evil “Superfly” (voiced by Ice Cube) who is up to some dastardly plot involving something that I also don’t remember, but he’s surrounded by a group of mutants similar to the Turtles, all of them voiced by very funny actors, including Rogen and Paul Rudd.
While the plot may not be that exciting and fairly standard, I loved how this movie looked, especially how New York City looked in particular, since it uses a style that feels almost like an abstract painting rather than the shiny glistening CG animation we’ve been getting in recent years. The movie is also made more entertaining by the personalities within the voice cast, firstly the young actors voicing the turtles, but also the perfectly-cast Jackie Chan voicing Splinter, the Turtles’ “father” and mentor. (It didn’t even bother me that Chan played the same role in The Karate Kid remake from a few years ago, since I quite enjoyed that.)
Ultimately, it’s a flawed movie due to some of the silliness involving the various mutants, where things get particularly silly, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but that might be as much because I’m a much bigger Spider-man fan. I guess what I mean to say is that the only thing holding Mutant Mayhem back from me enjoying it more is that I just ever have been a TMNT fan. That said, this movie is the closest that one has come to me liking them, and I would sit through this one again without hesitation.
Rating: 7.5/10
MEG 2: THE TRENCH (Warner Bros.)
Jason Statham is back as Eco-warrior Jonas Taylor in this sequel to the 2018 action movie, this one directed by Ben Wheatley, best known for his indie genre films made in England with his Netflix movie, Rebecca (a remake of Hitchcock, no less), maybe being his best known work, though not his best? I’m a fan of his earlier films like Kill List, Sightseers, and Free Fire, as he’s a British genre filmmaker in the vein of Edgar Wright in terms of combining horror and comedy quite well. It definitely interested me what he’d do with the concept of giant prehistoric sharks, because I found myself constantly amused by the trailer I kept seeing.
After an extended opening showing the food chain during the age where the Megalodons originated, we’re reintroduced to Taylor as he’s hidden on a cargo ship where there’s a group of men dumping chemicals into the ocean which Taylor is there to prevent. We then switch gears to the Oceanic Institute in China where Taylor and Cliff Curtis’ Mac from the previous movie work with Taylor being part of a diving team that goes down to the depths of the “Trench” in the Philippine sea where the legendary Megalodons are thought to come from. The Institute has the first-ever Megalodon in captivity and the director Jiuming Zhang (played by Jing Wu) thinks he can train it as he would any other sea mammal. His 14-year-old niece Meiying (Sophia Cai) is also hanging around, more to be annoying than anything else.
It’s not long before we’re down in the trench exploring that environment as the teams try to avoid the three Megs they find down there but running afoul of a group of robbers, plundering a sunken vessel in the trenches. There are all sorts of other perils down there, and eventually, our heroes get stranded down there, trying to figure out how to get to the Mana-1 base. Since this entire section is underwater, it leads to a few problems, one of them being how hard it is to figure out exactly what is going on with the action, but a bigger problem is the fact that the Megs are pretty much forgotten about in favor of other perils.
Otherwise, Statham does what he does in just about every movie, talking trash and getting into physical fights – the action choreography isn’t bad – includinga few with one of the film’s secondary villains, a guy named Montes (a terrible over-the-top performance by Spanish actor Sergio Persis-Menchetta), but there are quite a few other traitors turning on Taylor and his team. I’m familiar with Wu Jing from some of his Chinese movies, and he is indeed one of the biggest stars in China, which you can (kind of) tell from this movie, although his English isn’t great, and that really detracts from him bringing the proper level of drama to the conflict. The less said about Sophia Cai the better, because she’s close to being one of the most annoying child actors I’ve ever seen on screen. There’s also Page Kennedy as DJ, the token black guy, in the movie essentially to tell jokes in hopes of getting audiences back on the movie’s side after that hour sans giant sharks.
Fortunately, the last half hour of the movie is when the film starts to deliver what’s been promised by the trailer: giant sharks, a giant octopus, and all sorts of other creatures, and Wheatley does as well within this realm as Guillermo del Toro did with Pacific Rim, even if the writing just isn’t on par with that movie. This is where the film starts to become somewhat fun, but that’s after a good hour of underwater drudgery that really makes that great trailer seem misleading.
Ultimately, I didn’t hate Meg 2: The Trench, because there were aspects of it I quite enjoyed, but one can’t just sit back, eat some (free!) popcorn, and ignore the problems, the biggest one being the hour or so where the Megalodons are relegated to an afterthought. I’m definitely on the fence about this one but also quite disappointed, since I may have allowed my expectations to build from the fun trailer.
Rating: 6.5/10
I did an interview with Wheatley that hopefully will appear on Above the Line soon, and here it is!
DREAMIN’ WILD (Roadside Attractions)
I have not had a chance to see the new movie from Bill Pohlad, the director of the excellent Brian Wilson biopic, Love and Honor, but I also don’t know about the characters the movie is about, the Emerson Brothers, Donnie and Jo, as played by Casey Affleck and Walton Goggins. I’m actually surprised I’ve never heard of them, but I guess they were better known in the Pacific Northwest where their inspirational story of basically selling their family farm to make a record is better known. This is being released fairly wide, and if I have time, I might check it out, since I do like the cast, which includes Beau Bridges and Zooey Deschanel. Right now, there’s no theater count, but I don’t expect it to break into the top 10 since it will need to make more than $2 million to do so.
THE BOX OFFICE CHART
At one point, I was more bullish on both of the new movies, but I think they’re gonna have trouble getting people away from “Barbenheimer” just as Haunted Mansion did last week.
1. Barbie (Warner Bros.) - $55 million -41%
2. Oppenheimer (Universal) - $28 million -39%
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount) - $27.5 million N/A
4. Meg 2: The Trench (Warner Bros.) - $24 million N/A
5. Haunted Mansion (Disney) - $11.5 million -53%
6. Sound of Freedom (Angel Studios) - $8 million -38%
7. Talk to Me (A24) - $5.6 million -46%
8. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 (Paramount) - $51 million -52%
9. Elemental (Disney-Pixar) - $2.3 million -34%
10. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney) - $2.1 million -47%
Some interesting independent films and docs this weekend…
PASSAGES (Mubi)
I saw the latest from Ira Sachs (Love is Strange) at the virtual Sundance in January, and like many of his movies, it makes for compelling character drama even if this one doesn’t really deliver quite on par with Love is Strange.
It stars the underrated Franz Rogowski from Great Freedom, Undine, and Transit as filmmaker Tomas, who is married to Ben Whishaw’s Martin, but when he dances with Adèle Exarchopoulos’ Agathe at a party where their chemistry is undeniable. Despite being gay, Tomas sleeps with Agathe and then tells Martin who feels suitably put out by Tomas’ admission.
You may already know about this movie for the fact it’s being released unrated, rather than accepting the MPA’s damning NC-17 rating, but honestly, it deserved that rating, if nothing more than for the quite graphic sex scene between Tomas and Martin. But it’s more than just a movie to watch for the sex, because it does show off more of the great acting Sachs often gets out of his casts. Whishaw is particularly great, while Rogowski has been better, since he makes Tomas come off a lot like an arrogant and unlikable prick, so it’s hard to feel sorry for him – he basically deserves what he gets.. We watch these three characters continually interacting with each other as the relationships get more contentious (with Tomas getting Agnathe pregnant). The mix of international actors (French, German, British) is interesting, but the mix of languages is something that did sometimes throw me off.
Ultimately, this may not be my favorite movie from Sachs, but it’s still quite good, if only for the trio of talented actors he was able to put together to tell this original story. I think it might be a tough sell as a theatrical release but should be able to find an audience once it streams on MUBI.
Rating: 7/10
This is opening at the IFC Center on Friday with Sacks doing a bunch of QnAs and intros tonight and Friday.
OUR BODY (Cinema Guild)
Claire Simon’s doc won’t be for everybody as it’s a 2 hour and 48 minute cinema verité doc ala Frederick Wiseman that takes you inside the gynecological ward of a public Paris hospital, and while I’m not a huge fan of cinema verité as opposed to narrative-driven docs, this really is a fantastic film that shows doctor and therapists in this ward dealing with a number of patients and their differing conditions and issues which range from needing birth control to a couple wanting to have a baby. I especially found the latter part quite interesting, since I’ve never really thought about what was involved with artificial insemination, but you get to see the entire process including the science that normally goes behind closed doors. I was a little surprised that surrogacy is not legal in France since that country seems fairly liberally otherwise, but if you have nearly three hours free, this is an informative film that you literally can just sit back and relax and watch how the doctors deal with all their patients in different situations. This opens at the Film Forum on Friday. (And while you’re there, go see The Beasts, last week’s “Chosen One”... surely, if you can find five hours for “Barbenheimer,” you can find a little more than that for these two French films, no?)
A COMPASSIONATE SPY (Magnolia)
The new doc from Steve James is almost a counter to Oppenheimer, as it explores the life of an 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate who was recruited in 1944 to be a part of the Manhattan Project, who was so disheartened with what the U.S. government was going to do with the atomic bomb that he started feeding information to the Soviet Union. Now, if you’ve seen Oppenheimer, this will be familiar, since the spy at the Manhattan Project is a big recurring storyline. This sounds so great, and I’m bummed I couldn’t find time to watch it in advance, but it opens at New York’s DCTV Firehouse Cinema, down in my neighborhood, on Friday with James on hand for a number of QnAs, as this is paired as a double feature with previous James docs, Life Itself (his excellent Roger Ebert portrait) on Friday, and with Stevie on Saturday. Since James is one of the most renowned documentarians, this is definitely a program not to miss (and honestly, more people should go to the Firehouse Cinema to see their regular doc programming). A Compassionate Spy will play at the Firehouse until Aug. 10.
WHAT COMES AROUND (IFC Films)
This thriller from Amy Redford, who is indeed the daughter of one Robert Redford, is about a young love affair that turns into a cat-and-mouse game, and it stars Summer Phoenix, Grace Van Dien, and Kyle Gallner, but since I haven’t seen it, there’s really not that much more I can tell you about the movie, but I can share the trailer.
A few other movies I just didn’t have time to watch:
MOB LAND (Saban Films)
CORNER OFFICE (Lionsgate)
RANSOMED (Well Go USA)
That’s it for this week… same caveat as always that I don’t know if I’ll have a column next week, but if I do, I might right about The Last Voyage of the Demeter.