#Alita forgetting how heavy she is

[watchingbehindtheeyes]

Crushing love

Alita: DAD QUICK, HUGO IS BLEEDING TO DEATH AND NEEDS NEW LEGS

Ido: My God, what happened!?

Alita: ... I sat on his lap.

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I think in the art book it's stated her heart alone is 150kg?? But she's probably not THAT heavy because furniture under her would collapse. And more importantly, how would Ido be able to hold her like that in the opening scene. unless that old theory about Zalemites is true

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND October 4, 2019  - JOKER, PAIN AND GLORY, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, LUCY IN THE SKY

It’s October and we only have two more months to the year, but we have to get through one of the tougher months of the year (in terms of quality of films) to get to the good stuff. Fortunately, the month starts out with Todd Phillips’ JOKER (Warner Bros.), starring Joaquin Phoenix, which is looking to tell the definitive origin of the Batman arch-nemesis

You can read my mostly positive review of the movie right here (and more over at The Beat), but I want to talk a bit more at length about two movies that will get a limited release this weekend.

The first movie I want to talk about is Pedro Almodovar’s PAIN AND GLORY (Sony Pictures Classics), which in my opinion is his best and possibly most personal film in a decade or more. It stars Antonio Banderas as filmmaker Salvador Mallo, who has mostly retired as he faces illness late in life that makes him unable to work on a film set… or get the inspiration to make a new movie. Salvador has been invited to do a QnA for one of his classic films as it celebrates its 30thanniversary along with the film’s star with whom he had a falling out due to the actor’s drug use, the two having not spoken since. And it’s Salvador’s job to get the star to agree to do the QnA with him…. An encounter that ends up being catastrophic for Salvador, who starts using drugs himself.

To reveal more about the plot of Almodovar’s latest would be a huge disservice to the filmmaker who has created another intricate plot where every element has a purpose that’s all resolved by the film’s end. The film frequently flashes back to Salvador’s childhood in a small Spanish village with his single mother (played by another Almodovar regular, Penelope Cruz), which add to the troubles the filmmaker is having later in life. (Almodovar has cast an older actor to play Salvador’s mother sixty years later but she doesn’t look even remotely like Cruz.)

This is a film where you’re drawn into the story as Salvador’s life unfolds, and we learn more about what made him the way he is, and it’s easily one of the best performance of Banderas’ career.  The warmth and humor he brings to Salvador allows you to be with him even when he’s doing questionable things. I also want to call attention to the amazing Asier Etxeandia, who delivers an equally compelling performance.

I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s one of those confounding things that can be interpreted in so many different ways…and I can’t wait to see the movie again to see if I can unravel it. Pain and Glory is another beautiful and brilliant piece of art and storytelling from Almodovar and a welcome return to form both for him and for Banderas.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

The other movie I want to draw special attention to is Craig Brewer’s DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, which Netflix will give a theatrical release this weekend before streaming it on Netflix starting October 25. As you may have heard, it stars the great Eddie Murphy back in his first leading role in ages, playing Rudy Ray Moore, the stand-up comic and sing who wanted to be famous more than anything else. If you haven’t heard of Moore and his comic character Dolemite, you just have to look on the influence he’s had on everyone from Murphy to Samuel L. Jackson to just about every rapper who has ever gone on record (especially the 2 Live Crew!)

We meet Rudy as he’s trying to convince a DJ played by Snoop Dogg to play his records with no luck. Rudy is working in a record store with his faithful assistant, played by Tituss Burgess (from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), and he’s desperate to break-out as a failing stand-up comic. When he starts hearing the raunchy stories of Dolemite from the local bums, he puts together a new act where he plays a raunchy, foul-mouthed pimp named “Dolemite,” which goes over huge for his mainly black audiences. That soon turns into making a record that’s a huge hit with Moore touring the country selling them out of his trunk, and that eventually becomes an idea to make a very DIY movie.

This has a great cast but some of the real breakouts around Murphy include Da’Vine Joy Randolph as his protegé Lady Reed (aka Queen Bee) and Wesley Snipes in an amazing performance as “serious” actor D’urville Martin, who agrees to direct the movie but clearly has no idea what movie Moore and his team are trying to make. There’s also great stuff from Keegan-Michael Key as Jerry Jones, the serious dramatic playwright who also finds a way into Dolemite’s world. Randolph has the best moment when she thanks Rudy for putting “someone who looks like her” on the screen.

The script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski is fantastic, but Brewer – whom I’ve been a fan of since his early film Hustle and Flow – does terrific work in keeping things moving and making sure that Murphy is doing his best work.

Sure, it’s impossible not to avoid comparisons to The Disaster Artist, but I’d prefer that it be compared to Mario van Peebles’ excellent 2003 film Baadasssss!, which was about his father Melvyn van Peebles’ going through similar efforts to make his own film that appeals directly to black audiences years earlier. There’s actually more in common between the accomplishment by Van Peebles (a much more capable filmmaker) making his film and how he got it out into the world to Moore’s DIY ethos and its results. The Room was a bomb and a disaster that eventually became a cult hit; what Moore created was much more lasting.

I’m a little bummed that so few people are going to see this in theaters surrounded by laughter, but just the fact that Netflix is getting a movie about Dolemite into the world makes it easier to forgive them.

Rating: 8 out of 10

(Also, check out the repertory section below for a way to see the movie in double features with some of Moore’s “Dolemite” movies at the New Beverly theater.)

LOCAL FESTIVALS

The 57thNew York Film Festival continues this week with screenings of Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite– which I reviewed for The Beat– Kelly Reinhardt’s First Cow, and a special event screening of the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems. (Oh, yeah, and who could forget that Joker is screening with Todd Phillips doing a QnA on Wednesday?) Friday will see the Centrepiece premiere of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, starring Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson with SIX screenings! The weekend sees the debut of Michael Apted’s 63 Up, continuing his long-running doc series, as well as Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network, which I’ll also be seeing on Friday. There are also a few revivals and restorations, which you can read about in the repertory section below.

Also, Beyond Fest 2019 continues at the Egyptian in L.A. with more fun genre films. Your best bet is to click on that link and see what’s being shown but you can read about the rep stuff below, as well.

LIMITED RELEASES

On Wednesday night (with a repeat screening on Sunday), Trafalgar Releasing will release Roger Waters: Us and Them nationwide into a bunch of theaters, the movie documenting Waters’ 2017 tour, which sadly I missed, but I’m excited to see what I missed.

Opening Friday is Legion and Fargo creator Noah Hawley’s feature film directorial debut LUCY IN THE SKY (Fox Searchlight), starring Natalie Portman as Lucy Cola, an astronaut who has spent time in space but has trouble adjusting when she returns to earth and her husband (played by an unrecognizable Dan Stevens).  She’s in training for one of the next two shuttle launches, but she starts having an affair with fellow astronaut Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm) while competing fiercely against a younger trainee (Zazie Beetz). Things go downhill from there as Lucy – who is based on the real-life Lisa Nowak– starts messing up more and more. I think I can understand why critics have been so rough on Hawley and this movie, because really, it isn’t the outer space adventure some might be expecting, and that’s really just used as the set-up for Lucy having trouble adjusting at home. In fact, this could be an episode of a Fargo-like true-crime anthology that goes into other realms than just the Midwest. Once you get used to Portman’s heavy Southern accent, she’s quite good in this, and if you go into it expecting more of a true-crime story… with Hawley’s artistic filmmaking touch and some gorgeous imagery… Lucy in the Sky really isn’t so bad. I definitely think that people are going into this with certain expectations from the trailer/commercials that isn’t necessarily accurate.

A movie I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and really enjoyed was Kevin McMullin’s LOW TIDE (A24 /DirecTV) starring Keann Johnson (Alita: Battle Angel) and Jaeden Martell (It) asbrothers living on the Jersey coast who find a bag of valuable gold coins and try to hide it from their no-goodnick friends Red (Alex Neustaedter) and Smitty (Daniel Zolghadri) with whom they break into vacation homes to steal valuables.

Another decent lower-profile film about brothers opening Friday is Henry Alex Rubins’ SEMPER FI (Lionsgate), starring Jai Courtney and Nat Wolff as brothers “Callahan” and “Oyster” who are part of the Marine Corps Reserve. When they get into a bar altercation in which a man dies, Oyster is sent to jail and his brother feels the need to get him out in a plot that involves his Marine buddies. It’s a movie that starts off as a military drama but actually has some decent action in the last act, and I liked it more than Rubins’ last narrative feature Disconnect.

You can read my interview with Jai Courtney here, and I hope to have an interview with Nat Wolff soon, as well.

I haven’t had a chance to watch Michael Beach Nichols’ doc WRINKLES THE CLOWN (Magnet) but I’ve heard great things that makes me curious. It revolves around a YouTube video from 2014 that shows a man in a clown mask who has been hired by the parents of a young girl to frighten her for misbehaving. This genre-based doc looks into where “Wrinkles the Clown” came from and how he turned into a viral video, similar to the great HBO doc Beware the Slenderman.

Memory: The Origins of Alien (Screen Media) is the new doc from Alexandre Philippe, whose 2017 film 78/52took apart the shower sequence from Hitchcock’s Psycho. This one is just as intriguing as it goes through the processes of creating Ridley Scott’s Alien, which celebrates its 40thanniversary this year. I’m such a huge fan of Alienthat I just ate this movie up, and I could probably watch it over and over since I love hearing stories about the ideas and design that went into the movie.

Playing at the Film Forum starting Wednesday is Olivier Meyrou’s doc Celebration (KimStim) about fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent, commissioned by his business partner Pierre Bergé, has been sitting on the shelf for over a decade because it was deemed to be “too revealing” as it followed the ailing fashion designer during his last three years.

Unfortunately, I’ve run out of time for this week’s column but I’ll have more stuff to add here by Thursday afternoon sometime, if not sooner. Please check back for a few more limited releases!

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Metrograph’s latest series “NYC '81” which was more self-explanatory when it included the subtitle “A Series of NY Films from 1981 Leading into (the) Re-Release of Downtown 81.” Some of the films showing this weekend include Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 (also playing as part of Late Nites at Metrograph), Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City, Steve Gordon’s comedy Arthur, starring Dudley Moore, and Louis Malle’s My Dinner with André.Alain Corneu’s Série Norie will continue at least through Thursday. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matineesgoes with Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands(1990) starring Johnny Depp (plus you can still see David Lynch’s Mulholland Driveone last time tonight!) Also, Saturday afternoon you can see the Humphrey Bogart classic, The Maltese Falcon (1941).

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

You might notice that the New Bev has been released from the corner it was put in for misbehaving by playing new movies. It makes up for it by having a Wednesday matinee of Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho and also having screenings the next couple nights of David Fincher’s Zodiac. Friday is a matinee of Final Destination 2, one of my favorite movies in the series, and then the weekend “Kiddee Matinee” is the popular 1976 favorite The Monster Squad. Friday night’s midnight movie is Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, while Sat night is Kill Bill: Volume 2. Monday’s matinee is Wes Craven’s 1986 horror film Deadly Friend. Next week starting Monday, the new Bev begins a special program celebrating Netflix’s Dolemite is My Name with screenings of the movie as double features with actual Dolemite films, Monday and Tuesday nights being double features with the original 1975 movie Dolemite (the making of which is shown in the Netflix film). Welcome back, New Bev!

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Thursday, as part of the New York Film Festival, there’s a special retrospective presented by Warby Parker to celebrate the 100thanniversary of the American Society of Cinematographers. As part of that, you can see Robert Altman’s Western McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and a new restoration of Jack Arnold’s sci-fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).  On Saturday is a screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II (1974) just after a special The Cotton Club Encorewith a screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 movie at the Alice Tully Hall with a conversation with Coppola, Maurice Hines and James Remar afterwards.On Monday, Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) will screen as part of this retrospective, followed on Tuesday by a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 film Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp. It’s a pretty impressive sidebar to the festival from one of the uptown’s only retrospective theaters remaining.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Ooo… Bong Joon-ho’s amazing 2006 monster film is playing at the Alamo Thursday night at 10pm, and as of this writing, it’s not completely sold out yet! On Sunday, the Alamo is doing an “ultimate Willy Wonka Party” showing the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (one of my favorites from childhood) with some of the grow-up young cast from the movie! (Noon is sold out but there’s another screening at 9AM… good luck with that!)  Next Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is the 1991 Scary Movie, starring John Hawkes, while Wednesday’s “Weird Wednesday” is Lucio Fulci’s The Devil’s Honey from 1986.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Film Forum is beginning another great series this weekend called “Shirley Clarke 100” celebrating what would be the 100thbirthday of the African-American documentary filmmaker who passed away in 1997 at the age of 77. Some of the films in the series include Ornette: Made in America, Portrait of Jason, The Connection, The Cool World and more, including a series of shorts including Skyscraper, which received an Oscar nomination. Also playing for one week is a new restoration of Bill Forsythe’s 1981 film Gregory’s Girl, a film set in Glasgow that has been deemed one of the 100 greatest British films of the 20thCentury by the BFI. (Bill Forsyth will be there Saturday afternoon for a conversation.) Joseph Losey’s Holocaust drama Mr. Klein is also returning for one more day on Friday. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr” is the coming-of-age film Breaking Away (1979).

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Beyond Fest 2019 continues this weekend with a sold-out screening of The Exorcisttonight with William Friedkinin person. Otherwise tonight you can catch one of three free screenings of the 1971 film Mooch Goes to Hollywood and on Thursday, there’s a free screening of 1975’s Dolemite and a free screening of 1981’s Madman on Saturday. Unfortunately, Saturday’s West Coast premiere of the 4k restoration of Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic The Evil Dead is also already sold out. The Sunday triple feature of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps and The Fog is also sold out unfortunately.

AERO  (LA):

The AERO celebrates “50 years of Monty Python” with double features of the 1975 classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking  (1989) both in 35mm printson Friday, The Meaning of Life  (1983) and And Now for Something Completely Different  (1971) on Saturday, A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and Fierce Creatures  (1997) on Sunday. Tuesday’s “Tuesdays with Lorre” matinee feature is The Maltese Falcon.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s “See It Big! Ghost Stories” screenings are the 2001 Japanese horror film Pulse, clearly sharing the same 35mm print with the Roxy. Jonathan Demme’s 1988 film Beloved, based on the novel by TonI Morrison and starring Oprah Winfrey and Thandie Newton screens Saturday afternoon, while The Innocents andThe Others screen again on Sunday evening. On Friday night, you can also see the fairly recent Yuen Woo-ping action film Master Z: Ip Man Legacy. Saturday afternoon there’s a Serbian double feature of Ognjen Glavonic’s 2016 film Depth Two and 2018 film The Load.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

It doesn’t look like the IFC Center has posted their new series yet, although on Friday and Saturday at midnight (actually 11:59pm), you can see Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, if you haven’t seen it yet despite it screening for months here and at the Metrograph. Also, the IFC Center is showing George Miller’s 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Roadat midnight (actually 11:59pm) those same nights.

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

This weekend, BAM is showing the 1997 film Selena, starring possible Oscar-nominee Jennifer Lopez in her break-out role. It doesn’t seem to be connected to any series.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Roxy is screening the Japanese horror film Pulse (2001) in 35mm.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday’s midnight screening is Tommy Wiseau’sThe Room… again.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s “Netflix and Chills” offering is In the Tall Grass, the new movie from Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) based on the novella written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill. It’s about a brother and sister, her pregnant with a baby, who hear the cries of a young boy from a field of tall grass and they go inside to rescue him only to fall foul of a sinister force within that separates them along with a few other people, including one played  by Patrick Wilson. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie as much of it involves people running around yelling each other’s names in the tall grass, so it’s not particularly scary.

Next week, we’re back to three wide releases as Ang Lee’s Gemini Man, starring Will Smith, takes on the animated The Addams Family and the tech-comedy Jexi.