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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND June 28, 2019 - YESTERDAY, ANNABELLE COMES HOME, MAIDEN

I’m going to do things a little different again this week, because while I normally would begin with the bigger movie of the weekend, I actually have a lot of stuff about ANNABELLE COMES HOME (New Line/WB) over at The Beat, as you can see below, so instead, I’m going to put a little more focus on Danny Boyle’s YESTERDAY (Universal), because... well, read on...

It’s not often a movie comes along that combines all of my favorite things into a completely unexpected movie that works, but Yesterday, written by Love, Actually’s Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle, does just that. It takes a fairly high concept premise of a world without knowledge of the Beatles and their music and turns it into a hilarious comedy about fame and love and plenty of other things. Maybe that’s to be expected when it comes from a writer who has helped define British comedy and one of my favorite directors, but that doesn’t always mean that it will always work.

We meet Himesh Patel’s Jack Malik as he’s doing his regular busking around Sussex at any gig his best friend and manager Ellie (Lily James) can get for him, but it’s not going well and Jack is ready to give up. One night, after coming back from one such bad gig, the lights go out across the globe for 12 seconds and in that 12 seconds, Jack’s bike is hit by a bus. He ends up in the hospital with two missing teeth but when he gets out he starts playing “Yesterday” on an acoustic guitar bought for him as a gift by Ellie, and realizes that none of his friends realize who the Beatles are. Jack immediately realizes that it’s up to him to preserve the songs so he tries to remember them and incorporates them into his shows, at which point he suddenly starts getting more attention.

The first thing about Yesterday that’s immediately apparent is the talent and charm of Himesh Patel who really carries the film and has you constantly rooting for him. I’ve long been a fan of Lily James, especially after her turn in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, but I feel like the role of Ellie allows her to be more of herself than some of her other ones.

There are quite a few other levels to the humor, the first one being when Ed Sheeran, played by the real Ed Sheeran, contacts Jack Malik about his music and becomes involved in his story. The next level is when Kate McKinnon enters the picture as Sheeran’s manager who wants to turn Jack into a money-making superstar ala Sheeran. Sheeran ably makes fun of himself and his own talent as a singer/songwriter, but McKinnon takes her character so far into the world of sleaze that she’s hysterical (especially to someone who has worked in the music biz and has seen this first-hand). It’s also good to mention Joel Fry as Jack’s bumbleheaded friend/roadie Rocky and Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal as his parents, all who bring even more laughs to the movie.

Probably the most interesting turn is when Ellie is ready to say bye to Jack as he heads off to L.A., and she suddenly realizes that she’s in love with him though those feelings aren’t reciprocated. As Jack tries to navigate the music business with his sleazy new manager, he realizes that he has to go to Liverpool if he wants to remember the last of the Beatles songs, and once there, he reconnects with Ellie as they try to sort out their feelings.

That’s all I’m going to say because the last act is so full of surprises that really helps bring the whole thing home. And then on top of all that, you have the music of the Beatles, which still gives me goosebumps as performed by the talented Patel. (Once I buy this soundtrack, it will be the second record this year I’ve bought of an actor performing classic pop/rock songs and selling them as well as the original artist(s).)

I don’t think you have to be a Beatles fan to appreciate what Curtis and Boyle done with this premise, and maybe it’s because I’ve been in Ellie’s shoes, falling in love with a friend who just sees me as a friend that I really connected with the romantic angle of the film, one that really pays off.

Yesterday is just wonderful, and it’s easily one of my favorite movies of the year.

Rating: 9/10

Interview with Writer Richard Curtis over at The Beat

Getting back to Annabelle Comes Home, I’m sure that New Line’s latest entry into the ConjuringVerse is going to prove popular, especially with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Larraine and Ed Warren. It’s screenwriter Gary Dauberman’s directorial debut and it stars the amazing McKenna Grace (Gifted) as the Warrens’ daughter Judy, as it shows what happens when the Annabelle doll is released in the artifact room, drawing a gaggle of malevolent spirits to the Warren home as Judy and her babysitter (and friends) fight them off and try to figure out how to stop them.

My Review over at The Beat

Interview with Writer/Director Gary Dauberman at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

Another movie I’m really excited for people to finally see, one which I saw way back in January around when it premiered at Sundance is Alex Holmes’ doc MAIDEN (Sony Pictures Classics), which tells the amazing story about how Tracy Edwards put together an all-woman sailing team to race in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race despite all the odds against them. I loved this movie, not only because it’s an amazing story but also I’m a sailing enthusiast who sadly has not been able to get out and go sailing as much as I’ve hoped. But Edwards’ story and what she and hew crew

Over a year since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley stars as OPHELIA (IFC Films) in Claire McCarthy’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamletwith Ophelia taking center stage as the lady-in-waiting to Queen Gertrude, played by Naomi Watts. George MacKay from Captain Fantastic plays Prince Hamlet, and the movie will open at the IFC Center as well as select theaters across the country.

Also opening at the IFC Center on Friday (and then in L.A. on July 12) is Jan Zabelle’s Three Peaks (Greenwich Entertainment), starring Alexander Fehling and Bérénice Bejo (The Artist). Fehling plays Aaron who wants to be a family with his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son in the Italian Dolomites, but has trouble gaining the boy’s acceptance.

Opening in select cities is Mitch Davis’ THE OTHER SIDE OF HEAVEN 2: FIRE OF FAITH (Artaffects), a sequel to the 2001 faith-based film which grossed $4.7 million. Christopher Gorman returns as the missionary John H. Grober who returns to Tonga with his wife and five daughters, where they have a sixth child who is suffering an illness.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum is Lila Avilés’ The Chambermaid, set in a deluxe Mexico City hotel where chambermaid Eva spends her days making beds and dealing with needy clients, partially inspired by Sophie Calle’s The Hotel.

Opening at Film at Lincoln Center is James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir’s experimental film The Plagiarists (KimStim) starring Lucy Kaminsky and Eamon Monaghan as a couple stranded by a snowstorm while visiting a friend in upstate New York and are put up for the night by a strange guy named Clip (Michael Payne from Parliament) only to discover that his hospitality was not what it seems. The filmmakers will be on hand for QnAs after the screenings Friday and Saturday night.

Opening at the Quad Friday is Eddie Mensore’s Mine 9 (EmphatiCinema/Levey Distribution)about nine coal miners in West Virginia trapped underground after a methane explosion.

Also opening at the Quad (and at the JCC Manhattan) is Avi Nesher’s Israeli film The Other Story (Strand Releasing) about two rebellious young women from Jerusalem who clash in unexpected ways.

From China comes Derek Tsang’s thriller Better Days (Well GO USA), opening Thursday in select cities, about a female student preparing for the important “gaokao” college entrance exam tests, who teams with a small-time criminal named Bei when she’s being bullied over a classmate who committed suicide. (NOTE: I just read that Better Days was pulled from Chinese release a few days ago, so I’m wondering if maybe it’s U.S. release will be delayed accordingly, as well.)

Alicia Vikander and Eva Green star in Swedish filmmaker Lisa Langseth’s English-language debut Euphoria (Freestyle Releasing) as two sisters travelling to a mystery destination in Europe. It also stars Charles Dance and Charlotte Rampling and opens in select cities.

Last, there’s Martin Owen’s Killers Anonymous (Grindstone Entertainment) about a support group for killers, which stars Gary Oldman, Jessica Alba and Suki Waterhouse. This is probably a mostly VOD movie that might be released into a few theaters.s

LOCAL FESTIVALS

I had to omit this section last week due to time constraints, but this weekend begins one of my favorite annual New York film festivals, and that is the New York Asian Film Festival, mostly taking place at Film at Lincoln Center and then the SVA Theater. This is the 18thannual festival, dubbed “Still Too Young to Die,” and I have to admit that over the past few years, I’ve been somewhat neglect in my attendance and coverage of the festival. I hope to change that as there are definitely some things I’m hoping to catch. You have to remember that many of the films that play this festival NEVER receive U.S. distribution so NYAFF is the only chance to see some of them.

This year’s festival opens with Bernard Rose’s Samurai Marathon, a period piece set in the 1850s with an all-star cast and a Philip Glass score. This year’s centerpiece is

Eguchi Kan’s The Fable, adapting the Manga about a Yakuza hit man trying to lead a “normal life.” For a third year in a row, NYAFF has a competition for the Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film with seven films from different Asian countries in competition, many having their North American premieres: Moon Sung-ho’s 5 Million Dollar Life, Kim Yoon-seok’s Another Child, Huang Chao-liang’s Han Dan, Nojiri Katsumi’s Lying to Mom, Kenneth Lim Dagatan’s Ma, Yi Ok-seop’s Maggie and Wu Nan’s Push and Shove.

Legendary martial arts choreographer and director Yuen Woo-ping will be receiving the Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award, and they should be showing some of his best work at this year’s festival including Donnie Yen’s Iron Monkey, The Miracle Fighters and more.

This year’s festival will run until July 14, although the Closing Night film has yet to be announced.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming on Netflix starting Friday is Paul Thomas Anderson’s musical short Anima, starring and scored by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

REPERTORY

Before we get to the individual theaters, be aware that Spike Lee’s all-time classic Do the Right Thing will be receiving a 30th anniversary rerelease both in a new 4k digital restoration and in some cases, on an archival 35mm print. Check your local theaters to see if it’s playing near you, and if you haven’t seen it yet after 30 years, then you have no excuse not to go see it this week.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

When it comes to music docs, Les Blank is one of the pioneers and thankfully, Les Blank Films (along with Argot Pictures) is issuing two restorations of the ‘70s films he was involved with including Chulas Fronteras (1976) and Del Mero Corazon (1979) that look into the amazing music crossing the border between Mexico and Texas. Chulas, translated as “Beautiful Borders,” is a fascinating hour-long film that uses the music as a backdrop to show the everyday lives of those who live on the boarder. Del Mero (“Straight from the Heart”), co-directed with Maureen Gosling (who will be on hand Friday and Saturday night), Guillermo Hernandez & Chris Strachwitz is a shorter film mostly about the romantic songs from Mexico. Honestly, as someone who frequently has to listen to Mexican “mariachi” music on the subway while I’m trying to relax and listen to my own music, I wasn’t sure whether and if I’d connect with either film and while Chulas is definitely a stronger overall film, they both offer some great insights into the Tex-Mex music and musicians that have paved the way for others.

The Metrograph joins other New York arthouse in closing off Pride Month with Films of Pride and Protest: Stonewall at 50 with two series of films by various filmmakers documenting the groundbreaking rallies and protests that have helped the LGBTQ movement get to where it is today.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph screening is the Safdie Brothers’ Heaven Knows What (2015) while the Playtime: Family Matinees offering is Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921) in 35mm!

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

This week’s Weds. matinee is Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz from 1969 – I guess the new Bev is still going through the movies of the late ‘60s, a running theme the last couple weeks. Weds and Thursday’s double feature is Krakatoa, East of Java and The Boston Strangler (from 1969 and 1968, continuing that theme); Friday and Saturday sees a double feature of Steve McQueen’s Bullitt (1968) and George Sheppard’s Pendulum (1969); and then the Sunday/Monday double feature is Liza Minnelli’s The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) with 3 in the Attic (1968; in 16mm, no less!). The weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is another Steve McQueen movie, The Reivers, also from 1969, and then the midnight movies are Tarantion’s Inglourious Basterds on Friday night and Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant(1969) on Saturday night. Chris Nolan’s Inception (not from 1968 or 1969!) will screen as a matinee on Monday and then next Wednesday’s matinee is the James Bond film From Russia With Love (1963).

FILM FORUM (NYC):

On Friday, the Film Forum begins screening the Coen Brothers’ 1998 comedy classic The Big Lebowski for a week for no particular reason… but who needs a reason to catch up with Jeff Bridges’ The Dude and friends? It will also screen Elaine May’s classic bomb Ishtar, starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, again for no particular reason. Maybe because it’s summer? This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the 1982 John Huston musical Annie, and then on Sunday, the Forum will screen Otto Preminger’s 1954 film Carmen Jones, introduced by Donald Goble.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Cinematic Void presents a double feature of Ti West’s The House of the Devil(2009) and Wolf’s Hole (1987) on Thursday and then on Friday, the Egyptian goes further into the Czech New Wave with The Anarchic Cinema of Vera Chytilova, a double feature of Daisies (1966) and Fruit of Paradise (1970) as well as a couple shorts by the Czech director. The series continues on Sunday with a double feature of Panelstory and The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun. I honestly don’t know much about the Czech New Wave (or actually, nothing) but it certainly seems to be back in style. Also Sunday is a Barbara Stanwyk double feature as part of The Style of Sin, showing Ladies of Leisure (1930) and Baby Face (1933).

AERO (LA):

Thursday, there’s a screening of the new The Doors: The Final Cutwith director Oliver Stone and Val Kilmer in person, and it isn’t sold out, as of this writing! Friday is a screening of Charles Shyer’s Irreconcilable Differences (1984) with special guests and then the weekend is all about one of my favorite filmmakers, Lynn Shelton! After a preview of her excellent new movie Sword of Trust on Saturday, there’s a TRIPLE feature of Your Sister’s Sister (2011) on 35mm, Touchy Feely (2013) and We Go Way Back (2006) on Saturday and then a triple feature of Humpday (2009) on 35mm and 2017’s Outside In.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad continues to show its 2k restoration of Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg’s Before Stonewall (1984) through the weekend

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

On Wednesday, the Roxy is screening Humphrey Bogart’s classic Casablanca on a 35mm print, then Thursday, it’s showing the 2002 dark comedy The Rules of Attraction. Getting into the Pride spirit, Saturday sees a 35mm screening of the 2000 lesbian comedy But I’m a Cheerleader, presented in conjunction with Flaming Classics, as well as a 35mm print of the 1969 doc Portrait of Jason about black, gay sex worker Jason Holliday, which will screen one time on Saturday and Sunday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance wraps up with Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie (1976), Weekend Classics: LoveMom and Dad is Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978) while the Late Night Favorites: Spring concludes with David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001). The IFC Center will be one of the theaters showing Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing on an archival 35mm print, but only for the 7pm showtimes for the next week. Also in celebration of Stonewall (just a few blocks away), the IFC Center is premiering a 4k restoration of Frank Simon’s 1968 film The Queen (a Cannes selection), which looks at the 1967 Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, organized by LGBTQ icon Flawless Sabrina with judges including Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers and Terry Southern. It will be shown with the 1967 short Queens at Heart.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Thursday, BAM and FAB Flicks will show the 1961 musical classic West Side Story outdoors at the Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center. On Friday, BAM joins the celebration of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing with a 30thanniversary rerelease. The Beyond the Canon series continues on Saturday with a double feature of Dibril Diop Mambety’s 1973 film Touki Bouki with Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960)

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

Astoria, Queens’ premiere arthouse continues its Grit and Glitter: Before and After Stonewall series this weekend with John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs (1970) on Friday, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975)and Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) on Saturday. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2004 film Tropical Malady will screen on 35mm on both Saturday and Sunday. The See it Big! Action series will screen Pam Grier’s Coffy (1973) in 35mm on Saturday and Sunday.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Lincoln Center’s 50thanniversary celebration continues with 50th Mixtape: Free Double Features with Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady (1996) on Thursday night.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This Friday’s midnight movie is Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997)… subtitled!

Next week, it’s the extended 4thof July weekend and Sony’s seventh Spider-Man movie Spider-Man: Far from Home will go up against Ari Aster’s sophomore effort, Midsommar.

#Yesterday AnnabelleCOmesHome Maiden Movies Reviews WhatToWatchThisWeekend TheWeekendWarrior

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toweringfiction · 5 years

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Tower-ing Fiction #13: Osaka Tower, Glass (2019) and Sivana Tower, Shazam! (2019)

by Shawn Gilmore

Two 2019 films set in Philadelphia both feature fictional towers—one a wholesale creation, the Osaka Tower in Glass (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2019), the other a transposition of a real-world tower, branded as the Sivana Tower in Shazam! (dir. David F. Sandberg, 2019).

Osaka Tower, Glass (2019)

M. Night Shyamalan’s conclusion to his Eastrail 177 trilogy, Glass, is constructed around the opening of a fictional building, the Osaka Tower, which, as many characters in the film insist, will bt the tallest building in the Philadelphia.

Elijah Price, the almost fourth-wall-breakingly-aware villain, intones to Kevin Crumb, his multi-personalitied co-villain (introduced in Split (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2016)), that “the tallest building in the city is opening today. All the cameras in the world will record you. You can convince The Horde and the world at the same time--we exist” and later when urging on David Dunn, the film’s seeming protagonist:

ElWe are going to the tallest building in the city. The Horde is going to be revealed there. There are three floors that house a chemical company in that building. I am going to blow up that building using their chemicals, David. You might want to try and stop us. Today is your coming out party.

Osaka Tower, however, only periodically appears throughout the film, first seen out of focus in the background through the door of the film’s main location, Raven Hill Memorial Mental Institute, in which Elijah, David, and Kevin are being kept by Dr. Ellie Staple, as she attempts to convince them that they are not superpowered but instead have a variety of delusions of grandeur.

Within the fiction of the film, a number of diagetic elements flesh out the role that the building’s opening will play in the life of the city. A newscaster intones that “The new Osaka Building opens today with much fanfare. Thousands are expected to come out for the ceremony. Many just want to see the spectacular architecture of this building that's expected to be the hub of the business community.” And a magazine profile calls the building “a true marvel,” with a multi-page profile of its look and placement—setting it between City Hall and One Liberty Place (seeming to put it next to John F. Kennedy Plaza around Market and 15th Streets).

The article emphasizes the building’s reliance on “clean technology” and notes that “this nearly 1000-foot tall structure is designed with a few zealous environmental goals in mind. Not only is the structure planned to be the world’s [first?] ‘zero-energy skyscraper’, but it’s [also?] slated to generate excess electricity [that?] it would then insert back into [….the city’s?] grids.” This description seems to assert that Philadelphia’s current tallest building, the Comcast Technology Center, some 1,121 feet tall and completed in 2018, doesn’t exist in the world of the film. Indeed, a later newscast places Osaka Tower somewhere near the footprints of the Comcast Center right next to Three Logan Square (a few blocks northeast of the magazine cover), and if the CTC existed, it would appear just in front of the Osaka Tower.

We finally get a clear view of the tower, incorporated into the Philadelphia skyline, as seen from the Raven Hill Institute parking lot (where the film’s bizarre climax will occur), this time with two Comcast towers in the center of the frame behind the three iconic pyramid-topped buildings: One and Two Librery Place and the BNY Mellon Center. (Here, it seems to have moved a few blocks back in the other direction…)

In the latter, nearly static shot from late in the film, the most interesting feature of the Osaka Tower, unremarked on in the film’s dialogue, are two seemingly flexible bellows that shift in and out, making the building appear to breathe. Along its exterior skin, (solar?) panels appear to flip like scales as the sunlight skims along these shifting surfaces.

This version of the building doesn’t seem to align with that protrayed in the magazine feature, and certainly seems like an ambitious concept that doesn’t factor into the film at all. Indeed, Osaka Tower is really only in the film for symbolic reasons. As Elijah’s mother puts it: “I remember something about a classic public forum, where the climax of limited editions end. I think he said it was referred to as the showdown, where all the skllls are revealed and pitted against each other.”

The Horde—the powerful creature that emerges periodically within Kevin declares that by fighting at Osaka Tower, “we will finish this--in front of the world.”

But this is not to be. In a kind of twist, the film kills all three of its leads in the Raven Hill parking lot, revealing only just before the credits that Elijah arranged for footage of David and Kevin’s displays of superpowers to be released to the public (and in even more bonker twist on a twist, that Dr. Staple is part of a secret organization that has been suppressing the emergence of superpowered individuals throughout history…).

Osaka Tower opens without a hitch, and in the closing scenes of the film, another view of the building reveals the motion of the solar panels on its west façade, as the camera pans down.

When the camera reaches the base, which is now some dozen or more blocks west than any of its previous appearances, it then pans over the rail entrance of the 30th Street (Penn) Station, where, presumably, David Dunn once boarded Eastrail 177, along with Kevin’s father, a train that was derailed by Elijah in Unbreakable (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2000).

Sivana Tower, Shazam! (2019)

ShazamI, the live-action DC Extended Universe version of DC’s Captain Marvel franchise features the boy-turned-adult-superhero-via-magic Billy Batson/Shazam versus his most iconic foe, Thaddeus Sivana. In this version, Thaddeus is the prodigal son of the Sivana family, and in the course of the film takes over Sivana Industries, which is run by his father and brother. After taking the Seven Deadly Sins (in the fiction the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man) into his body, Sivana is able to story the Sivana Industries board room in Sivana Tower, taking over his family’s company.

Sivana Tower is presented as though it is in the heart of downtown Philadelphia, appearing to be an octagonal skyscraper with stepped sides and a glass façade, visually somewhat similar to the MetLife Building in New York City. However, the building is pretty obviously the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, a 57-story (792’) tower, the tallest in the city (and also the tallest glass-curtain skyscraper in the United States).

In the establishing shot (below), Sivana Tower is flanked by other Minneapolis towers, including just to its right, the golden Wells Fargo Center, in the foreground, AT&T Tower, with its flared glass top, and to the right of the frame, Capella Tower, the second-tallest skyscraper in Minneapolis, with its circular crown.

However, the view outward from the Sivana Industries board room does look out on the Philadelphia skyline, putting the tower approximately at approximately Vine and 17th Streets, looking southeast, with a few notable buildings easily distinguishable: City Hall just visible on the lower left, the sand-colored Centre Square towers in the center, and Comast Center, with its glass façade, on the right.

The film further uses the Philadelphia skyline as a backdrop, as in this dialogue scene which looks west, with prominent towers such as (left to right) Two Liberty Place, One Liberty Place, and the BNY Mellon Center, on the left of the frame.

However, much of the film was shot in and around Toronto, including the scene in which Shazam attmps to test his jumping abilities, starting at ground level on the corner of Adelaide and Yonge Streets before crashing through the upper windows (somewhere around the 25th floor) of the Dynamic Funds Tower.

Near the end of the film, a nighttime fight over the city serves as a showcase for Philadelphia’s skyline and locations, including showing its tallest building, the Comcast Technology Center (60 stories, 1,121’), with its bright white vertical light

and the 30th Street (Penn) Station and nearby angular Citra Centre, with its east side lit.

As the fight between Shazam and Sivana escalates, they pass repeatedly by City Hall, before eventually striking the iconic statue of William Penn, sending the statue’s head into nearby Love Park (John F. Kennedy Plaza), crushing a replica of the also iconic Love sculpture by Robert Indiana.

And over the remainder of the fight, various views of the city show the amount of work (on green screen) done to establish the Philadelphia cityscape as the setting of the Shazam/Sivana conflict.

#Glass (2019)#Shazam! (2019)#film #tower #Tower-ing Fiction #Shawn Gilmore

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND November 22, 2019 - A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, 21 BRIDGES, AGNES BY VARD and more

While things have gotten busier in my everyday life, things are somewhat slowing down in terms of movies as we get through Thanksgiving, and then things will pick up again in December as every studio tries to get their awards movies into theaters.

The big movie of the weekend is Disney’s FROZEN 2, which I really don’t have much to say about. I haven’t seen it. I don’t plan to see it. NEXT! (I did write quite about about it over at The Beat.)

I have seen the other two wide releases of the weekend and the better of the two is Marielle Heller’s A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Sony/Tristar Pictures). I’m not going to write a full or mini review, but you may already know that this is the movie in which Tom Hanks plays Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but what you might not realize is that this is not a biopic. Instead, this is a story based around a 1998 meeting between Rogers and and a cynical Esquire writer (played by Matthew Rhys) sent to profile him. What happens instead is that the writer ends up becoming friends with Rogers, who helps him deal with domestic issues, particularly with his father (played by Chris Cooper). It’s quite a wonderful film that really wins you over as it goes along, and though it’s not Mr. Rogers’ story, it is Hanks’ movie, very similar to Disney’s Saving Private Ryan a few years back.

I really wanted to like Brian Kirk’s 21 BRIDGES (STXfilms), starring Chadwick Boseman, J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller and Stephan James, cause I really like a good New York-based police thriller… but this isn’t one. Yeah, I’m not sure what happened but a lot of it has to do with Kirk having a better cast than a script, and there being a lot of really obvious and questionable plot devices that are easy to figure out almost from the beginning. I also was annoyed that it immediately set up Boseman’s police detective as a cop not afraid to use his gun but twice he has Stephan James’ character at gun point, once while he is holding his partner (Miller) hostage, the other in a face-off on a train, and he doesn’t shoot. It’s just a very disjointed film that could and should have been a lot better.

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the regularly-scheduled releases, I want to mention the latest concert film release by Trafalgar Releasing, Depeche Mode: Spirits in the Forest, which is where you’ll be able to find me on Thursday night. I was pretty bummed to miss the group’s last tour, I think because I was in Toronto for my last TIFF, but going by Trafalgar’s other releases, this should be another great concert film.

The bigger release of the weekend is Todd Haynes’ DARK WATERS (Focus Features), starring Mark Ruffalo as environmental defense lawyer Rob Pilott, who was called upon by a farmer (Bill Camp) from the area of West Virginia where he grew up about the hundreds of cows who were dying from mutations which could be blamed on the nearby Dupont plant. As Pilott investigates, he learns that the materials being used to create the company’s innovative “teflon” has elements that are dangerous to living things, as he spends decades trying to get them to take responsibility. I usually like this type of movie, as evidenced by last week’s The Report, and of course, I’ve been a long-time Haynes fan, but this movie was a real slog, especially when compared to The Report or the earlier environmental message movie from Focus Features, Promised Land, which Gus Van Sant directed. Haynes had a decent cast but the story is told at such a snail’s pace that I found myself mostly bored and even dozing at times. Anne Hathaway is particularly wasted as Pilott’s wife, because she really doesn’t get to show off her usual dramatic flair. I did like most of the cast otherwise, but I just can’t in good conscience recommend this movie. (Regardless, I should have some interviews over at ComingSoon.net sometime soon.)

On the other hand, I loved Agnès Varda’s final film VARDA BY AGNÈS (Janus Films), a documentary that covers her entire film career and acts as a mini-filmmaking lesson as much as it’s a portrait of her life. I’ll freely admit that I’m not too familiar with Varda’s work beyond the movie Faces Places, which she made with photographer J.R. a few years back. This movie covers their collaborating but also so much more, and if you want a great autobiographical view of the filmmaker and visual artist, this is a great introduction, especially with her entire filmography being shown at Lincoln Center in a complete retrospective next month. I just loved this movie, and it made me want to see more of Varda’s work, as she has had such an amazing and rich career as a filmmaker, especially in recent years as she got more into creating film-based installations. This opens at the Film Forum and at Lincoln Center in New York, and I expect somewhere in L.A. as well but hopefully it will get out to more cities.

Opening at the Quadin New York as well as the Laemmle Royal in L.A. is Kim Loginotto’s doc Shooting the Mafia (Cohen Media Group) about Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia who spent her life battling the Mafia by filming their crimes as a photojournalist.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney also has a new doc out this week called CITIZEN K, also opening at the Laemmle Royal, but can also be seen at the Kent Theater if you don’t mind treking out to Coney Island. It’s a look at post-Soviet Russia through political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was able to get rich living in exile in London after being deposed as an oligarch.

Apple TV+’s Sundance pick-up HALA (Greenwich Entertainment) will get a theatrical release before debuting on the channel. Written by Minhal Baig, it follows a 17-year-old Pakistani-American teenager (played by Geraldine Viswanathan) who is try to balance her different lives.

Also out this week is the action flick The Courier (Lionsgate), starring Olga Kurylenko as a motorcycle courier who has to fight a sadistic crime boss’ henchmen to protect the witness that can incriminate him. It also stars Gary Oldman and Dermot Mulroney. I’ll let you figure out which actor plays which role.

Lastly, there’s Jon Kasbe’s doc When Lambs Become Lions (Oscilloscope Laboratories), winner of the editing award at Tribeca, as it follows a small-time ivory dealer who is trying to protect his trade with the help of a conflicted wildlife ranger. It opens at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in L.A. on Friday and then the Village East in New York on December 6.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s streaming premiere is the fantasy rom-com The Knight Before Christmas, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse.

REPERTORY

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

I’m going against the norm this week by starting off with FilmLinc, and there’s a good reason for that, and it’s called, “Relentless Invention: New Korean Cinema, 1996-2003,” which as it explains quite readily is an amazing series of some of the best Korean films from those years leading up to Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy, which was quite a turning point for the country’s cinema. The series includes two of Bong Joon-ho’s films, 2003’s Memories of Murder (in a new 4K restoration) and Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), as well as Director Park’s earlier films Joint Security Area (2000) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, both which are excellent. Others include Kwak Jae-wong’s rom-com My Sassy Girl from 2001, which was a pretty big Asian box office sensation. Genre films are well-represented with Kim Jee-won’s 1998 film The Quiet Family, Park Jong-won’s Rainbow Trout (which I highly recommend since it has similar class contrasts as Director Bong’s Parasite), as well as Nowhere to Hide. The series will run through December 4, two whole weeks, and if there’s a good excuse to get up to the Upper West Side, then THIS IS IT!!

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Things are still going well down in my own neighborhood on the Lower East Side, as Metrograph Pictures will be releasing a new restoration of Susan Sontag’s 1969 debut feature Duet for Cannibals (Metrograph Pictures), a quirky movie she made in Stockholm centers around the love quadrangle between a German exile, his wife and his Swedish secretary and soon-to-be wife. Noah Baumbach’s residency continues with screenings of 2010′s Greenberg and 2014′s While We’re Young, paired with hand-selected companion films, Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) with the former and Mike Nichols’ Working Girl (1988) on Sunday. Also, Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, currently my favorite movie of 2019, will screen at the Metrograph on Sunday as part of its allegiance with the New York Film Critics Circle.

The Metrograph is doing Daniel Schmidt’s “Dream Double Feature” a little differently… by showing them on two different nights with Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on Friday and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2015 Cemetary of Splendor with Rachel Rose’s 2016 short Everything and More on Saturday. I don’t really know as much about the films being shown as part of Moustapha Alassane: Three Programs of the Nigerien Master, but each program is made up of a series of shorts that are running Saturday and Sunday. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is the anthology film Tokyo!, featuring short works from Bong Joon-ho, Michelle Gondry and Leos Carax. It will screen Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights while this weekend’s Playtime: Family Matineesis George Cukor’s 1933 adaptation of Little Women.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The lateness of my column means I keep missing the Weds matinee and I apologize for that. Also tonight and Thursday is a double feature of Vigilante, The Delta Force and Avalanche. Friday’s Cronenberg matinee is 1996’s Crash, while the Friday midnight movie is Pulp Fiction and then Saturday’s midnight is Demolition University (1997) with director Kevin Tenney in person. This weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is the 1961 adventure Mysterious Island. Monday’s matinee is The Limey, and Monday night is a “Robert Forster Secret Surprise Night” in tribute to the late star of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Tuesday’s double feature is David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive with the 1998 remake of Psycho, and just in case I’m late on next week’s column, the Weds. matinee is Samuel Fuller’s 1959 The Crimson Kimono.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases be Noiris Allen Baron’s 1961 film Blast of Silence(on Friday and Saturday only), this week’s Waverly Midnights: Spy Games is 1990’s The Hunt for Red October and The Manchurian Candidate. Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019is once again Argento’s Suspiriaand Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange– both great movies, but enough already! At least on Monday, you’ll have a chance to see Todd Haynes’ awesome 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, presented as part of the Queer|Art|Film series.

MOMA (NYC):

Vision Statement: Early Directorial Works will screen Cristian Mungiu’s acclaimed 2007 film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Dayson Thursday (also playing at Film Forum this weekend), John Cassevetes’ 1959 film Shadowsand Kleber Filho’s Neighboring Sounds on Saturday. Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmcontinues with more films from 1927 and 1928. Otherwise, MOMA is concentrating on its annual “Contenders 2019” series.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

“The Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution” continues through next Thursday with lots of interesting choices and Yasujior Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight continues through November 28. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Miracle on 34th Street.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Friday is a special cast and crew reunion screening of Flight of the Navigator, while Joe Dante’s 16mm Spotlight on Sunday will show Ladybug Ladybug (1963). The theater is mostly focused on “Argentina: New Cinema 2019,” while the AEROis mostly focused on “Cinema Italian Style 2019.”

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN(NYC)

Next Monday’s “Out of Tune” is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (which is already sold out), Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is 1987’s Stagefright and the “Weird Wednesday” is 1994’s Tammy and the T-Rex.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Sunday, Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003) and Alan Pakula’s Klute (1971) will be shown as a double feature as part of “Beyond the Canon.”

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI’s “Moments of Grace: The Collected Terrence Malick” continues this weekend with screenings of The Thin Red Line(with critic Matt Zoller Seitz introducing the Friday night screening) and Days of Heaven.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

1987’s Oscar-winning performance by Cher in Moonstruck opposite Nicolas Cage screens on Thursday and Friday. Guillermo del Tor’s Pan’s Labyrinth also screens Friday night while the Coens’ Raising Arizona (1987) will screen Saturday as will a special Kevin Corrigan-hosted screening of 1997’s Bandwagon in 35mm. Sunday is a special 35mm screening of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie Marie Antoinette.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

The Friday midnight offering is Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon in 1997’s Freeway.

Next week, it’s Thanksgiving and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which also has advance screenings this Friday and Saturday nights, as well as the crime-drama Queen and Slim.

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