#it's my first time ever seeing a superhero movie centered around a family of Mexican immigrants & it was so strange

[thevaldezzzinator]

Just got out of blue beetle

You should definitely go watch it if you haven't already I absolutely loved it

[cjstheshethey]

I really wanna talk about Blue Beetle and why it's so important to me. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

Ever since this movie was announced, I was excited because I have familiarized myself with the character of Jaime Reyes for over a decade now. My sister introduced to me to the character when we had our late night Young Justice marathons during a vacation in Mexico back in 2013. Eventually, we got to season 2, where Jaime was introduced. I remember when he would speak Spanish, I would say "Hey he speaks Spanish like us!" And sometimes my non-English speaking cousins would join us watching the show, and when he spoke Spanish, they were able to understand him. As time went on I kinda forgot about DC for a while since I was gaining other interests until Young Justice came back for its 3rd and 4th seasons(This is also your subtle sign that if you haven't watched Young Justice you should do that). Naturally, Jaime is still one of my favorite characters in the show. While I was still in my Young Justice hyperfixation, It was announced that a Blue Beetle movie was happening and even had some concept art shown. Me being the superhero loving Mexican nerd that I am, I was already hyped, and we hadn't even gotten a trailer yet. Then, on April 3rd of this year, the first trailer came out, and I was so excited. DC has been one of my special interests since literally as long as I can remember no joke one of the first shows I ever remember seeing was the original Teen Titans and so combine one of my special interests with one of the most important parts of my identity(my ethnicity) and an excuse to go to the movies? I was stoked. And so I finally saw it a couple of days ago, and I LOVED it. From the family dynamic to the music choices(La Chona in the beginning where Rudy was introduced was the most Mexican introduction ever and I love it.) and even a few references to Mexican culture I didn't expect, Blue Beetle was everything to me. Finally a movie centered around a Mexican family that wasn't afraid to go into topics like immigration and straight up racism towards Mexicans and those topics not taking up the whole story while also not stereotyping any of these characters and treating them like real people. These guys did their research, and it showed. During the part where Jaime comes back to Earth and starts saying something in Spanish, he's saying a prayer. I used to say that particular prayer a lot back when I was a kid, which is a good thing they added that in there because it makes relatable to someone like me. I really wanna make note of one of my favorite scenes from the movie. So after Jaime gets the Scarab and it attaches itself to him, he tries to find a way to get it off him. Once they go to Ted Kords' hidden lab and find out he can't get rid of it safely, he angerly walks out. His uncle Rudy follows him up to the roof. Rudy asks if Jaimes ok and Jaime apologizes for yelling at Rudy. Rudy then starts giving a really good talk about the family and how resilient they are. Then he says this. "I mean, look at your old man. He brought me here from Sonora....when I was 10." No joke, just ask @alextric-overload(Hey dude 😁) and my other friends who came with me, I legitimately gasped in that theater. Why? Because that's where my family is from. Never before did I ever imagine Sonora would even be mentioned in any media let alone a big screen superhero movie but I am so glad it was and I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never in my life have I felt so seen and so represented. The moment those credits rolled, I legit said word for word, "This! This is how you do representation. MORE. OF. THIS. PLEASE." This is why representation is so important because if we continue to make movies like this, more people like me can see themselves in media and feel the way I did. REPRESENTATION MATTERS! So please go support this movie if you haven't already, it's so worth it!

[inadequeer]

title: Hang Me Up to Dry

relationships: jayroy

summary: When Jason happens to be state side training with another teacher Talia set up, he runs into someone from a past life.

a/n: Set during lost days. I wanted to write Jason helping Roy get clean instead of Dinah and Hal

[on ao3]

      Star City was a shithole, but in a different way than Gotham was a shithole. Star City was where you went to make it big, and where you died of an overdose in swimming pool fifteen years later. A sprawling southern California city and the center of the nation’s film and television industry. Where Gotham had endless families of organized crime and psychopaths in masks, Star City just had crime, plain and simple. Gang bangers and Pushes ruled the city while the rich movie stars snorted cocaine in their beach homes and pretended the world didn’t exist outside of Star Hills.

        The air reeked of pollution and sweat, and something left sitting out in the sun for too long. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a homeless person or an aspiring actor. Jason didn’t know if he would burn Gotham or Star City down first if he had the chance, at least Star City had beaches so you could at least pretend it was pretty Gotham didn't even have that. He was only here on business, he never would have set foot in the hole otherwise, learning how to make poisons and toxins from a cruel Chinese woman who doubled as a heroin supplier. (Another pointless errand from Talia.)

        He was sprawling out on the couch watching some Spanish soap opera that he had gotten invested into while he waited for Soo to return, when he caught the tail-end of a conversation between two thugs who ran the streets for Soo, selling her product. In other words— scumbag drug dealers. They were both Mexican like him, one with a close shaved head and a tacky goatee, and the other was decked out in gang tattoos, including a tasteful teardrop inked onto his cheekbone.

“If we're short again this month, she’s going to kill us.”

“Relax. We just need to find Harper. He’s gotta be itching for his fix by now.”

“Haven’t seen him in a while. Maybe he finally ate it.”

“I hope not. He's a piece of shit, but he’s a regular.”

They whispered to each other in hushed Spanish— as if they thought because he was from Gotham he couldn’t understand them. The chatter was nothing interesting, but the name caught Jason’s attention. It was a name from a past life, a lazy grin, messy red hair, memories fleeting behind his eyes like a forgotten song. A person, he’d actually remembered a person, that almost never happened.

“Hola,” He greeted, stormy eyes bright and intense as he stood up and gave the two gangsters a casual grin. “Who’s Harper?” He asked in Spanish. They gave each other uneasy looks, unsure of what to do when cornered by an eighteen-year-old who looked ready to snap either of their necks.

“He’s just some white trash junkie. He’s a regular, but he hasn’t been seen for a while.” Jason cracked his knuckles and tried not to think about it, a mysterious someone slumped over a table, blood running down their nose with the needle still in the other hand.

“Can’t be a good business practice to off your regulars, but I guess that can’t be helped when you’re dealing drugs.” He mused to himself. After a month of working with Soo, it was clear that heroin was the deadliest thing she created. “What’s he look like? This Harper guy.”

“Like every other junkie living on the street. Why do you care kid?”

Jason whipped out his gun from the waistband of his pants and pointed it evenly at the first man’s chest without ever looking away. “Just answer the fucking question before I get mad.” He growled, finger tapping the trigger lightly. The one with the goatee responded by pulling out his gun, and snarling something at Jason. But the tattooed one just gave Jay a funny look.

“Hey hey— Whoa. Easy ese.” The tattooed guy said, raising both hands in the universal sign of ‘Don’t Shoot.’ “His name is Roy Harper I think, pasty, gangly sonovabitch with long red hair and usually wearing some stupid trucker hat.”

“I hear he’s a mutant.”

“Used to be one of those fucking superhero types, I heard, but now look at him. No better than the rest of us.” He scoffed, but Jason had stopped listening. Words weren’t his strong suit but Roy, that sounded right. So he had known… one of those hero types? How the hell? Had he really been in deep enough shit as a kid to get mixed up with capes?

Talia had told him not to go looking for his past. And she was right, it didn’t matter anymore, his past was just a distraction. But the opportunity was right there. What if this Roy had been his friend? And now he was hooked on some bad stuff. These guys said he was a regular, and if anyone knew what that looked like it was the sellers. Jason mulled this information over, chewing on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully before he finally made a decision. He slid his gun back into his waistband and gave the two of them a cheeky salute, tapping two fingers to his temple and then extending the hand towards them.

“Well, that’s all I need to know. Thanks a million you guys.”

        Jason had learned (remembered?) a long time ago that if you wanted to find a junkie the best place to look was Chinatown, so that was his first stop. He wasn’t sure what was really driving him to find Roy, god knows he had more important things on his plate than some barely remembered junkie, but Jason had so few shreds of his old life left to him. No matter who he is, this Roy deserved better than dying alone in the gutter.

Anger boiled inside of him, as he swerved through lanes of Star City traffic in his motorcycle.

        Just like home he thought bitterly pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up. Every big city in the world had their ‘bad parts of town’ and they were all pretty much the same, and no matter how hard he had tried he had never escaped — not really. He had made sure to park in the more touristy area because he wasn’t a complete dumbass and he didn’t want his bike stolen. From there he looked for the shadier areas, back alleys and rundown shops and the like. If you knew what to look for picking a drug dealer in a crowded street no problem. He watched a hooded man make a sale, palming off cash for a packet of white powder before he approached.

“You sellin’ smack?” He asked in a hushed voice, making a show of looking paranoid, and glancing around.

“Aren’t you a little young for H kid?” Great, a drug dealer with a conscience. Not where he expected a morality lecture.

“Who cares?” He snapped, crossing his arms. “If you’re too high and mighty to sell to a “kid” like me I’ll just go find someone else.”

“Hey, slow down it’s not like that. You have the money?” Jason reached into his pocket, then to his other and winced.

“Shit.”

“Sorry kid, you don’t have the cash you’re shit out of luck.”

“Please man! I just gotta find a buddy of mine, you know a guy named Roy Harper? He owes me big time, once I find him I’ll be able to pay the rest. Maybe you could float me until then?”

“No way in hell mijo, but if you want to get that money you’re owed be my guest. I know Harper and there’s a loft just south of here— old brick building where he and a couple’a other junkies go to shoot up. You go get your money and I’ll be right here.” Jason looked pained, ran a hand across his brow, where he didn’t even have to pretend to be sweating since it was hot as hell outside.

“Fine. Fuck you man.” He snapped, stalking off in the direction he had been pointed. The act dropped but his scowl didn’t. Shit. What the hell was he getting into. He shouldn’t care about some random ass junkie he didn’t even know anymore. So why did he anyway? Maybe he wanted to be the good guy for once. Maybe because he knew what it was like to die alone.

        Either way he didn’t stop, not until he was in front of the boarded-up brick building and forcing the door open. There was probably a secret entrance people used, but when you had super strength you don’t need a secret entrance. The smell of garbage, mold, and piss hit him and he groaned out loud. Yep, just like home, he thought as he pulled his shirt up over his nose, and flicked on the flashlight on his phone. He had stayed in places like this, he remembered that now. Jason had suspected he was from the street for a while now and this was only confirming it. Honestly he wasn’t surprised; how could anyone forget a smell like that, how it clung to you wherever you went, filling your senses and suffocating you.

Jason picked his way through the building carefully. From what he could tell it was an old department store, leaking pipes drooping from the ceiling and half assembled mannequins watching him with their painted on eyes and Jason didn’t care for that shit at all. The dealer had said they shot up in the loft, so finding the first floor empty wasn’t surprising. He moved towards the stairs, his gaze sweeping across the empty room with what some might call paranoia. He just wasn’t a fan of dolls, mannequins, or bugs and could you blame him? No.

        He was staring at a large black blob on one of the mannequins naked bodies trying to determine if it was a gargantuan cockroach or not when he stumbled on a disembodied mannequin head with a loud crash as he swore and grabbed the closest thing next to him. Which was a portion of the rotted wooden staircase, which he easily tore off as he fell.

“Fuck! Fuck shit son of a piss fucking bitch—“ He seethed, throwing the ruined wood to ground and jumping to his feet. Well if anyone thought they were alone in this building they sure as hell didn’t anymore. He was immensely grateful that no one had been there to see that as he brushed himself off and tried to calm down. “Okay, there was my heart attack of the day. Let’s not do this again.” He muttered to himself, shaking his head. He climbed the stairs, scanned the second floor before continuing upward. The building had five stories, and when he did finally get to the top floor he knew this was the right place. Tables were set up set up and littered with old Chinese food boxes and other garbage, with a couple of lamps scattered about, connected to long orange power strips that ran around the whole room. There was a shitty couch pushed up against the wall. It was clearly the place the dealer had been talking about, but it was empty, and judging by the smell of that take out, no one had been back here in days

“Damnit.” He hissed, climbing out onto the fire escape, unable to bear the smell any longer. The sun had set by now but it was still hot, street lights lighting up the city just as well as the sun. He took a moment to clear his head and think about where else he could look, probably the shelters, ask some other junkies if they knew Roy. When he stepped off the metal and landed in the road below he heard a low groan from behind a pile of trash and a couple of garbage cans.

“Unnnn…” Jason kicked the cans out of the way and the person who had been hiding behind it flinched backwards. Jason got a look at him from the light thrown down the alley by a passing car. He was scrawny, and dressed in a shitty tank top and tucker hat, with long red hair and green tattoos decorating his biceps.

“Roy.” He breathed out. Holy shit. Just seeing the guy’s face was bringing a burst of memories, if only scraps. Roy’s grin, his jawline when it was shaved, his laugh, Jason’s pulse racing at the sight of his arms…

Oh, god, oh god. Roy had been. His crush. Well, that answered the question of if dying had made him gay.

"Please tell me you're here to kill me,” present Roy moaned. This Roy was hardly recognizable from the snapshots remembered. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had been to hell in these last few years.

“Nope. Sorry.” He reached out a hand to help Roy up, but he smacked it away.

“Fuck.” Roy swore vehemently, “If you’re not going to kill me then get me some goddamn drugs.” He whispered, his voice hoarse, his chapped lips cracking and bleeding. “Please, please please please. Common man, I’m dying here. I’ll do anything.” Jason grit his teeth and this time just fucking grabbed Roy.

“Not gonna do that either. Come on.”

“Get off me man! Let me go!” Roy snarled.

“I’m trying to save your life asshole!” Jason yelled back, shaking Roy violently, and sending him cross eyed.

“Fuck, oh fuck. Ouch it hurts, it hurts it hurts!” He sobbed, gripping his stomach and falling to his  knees in pain. As he pulled Roy up once more another car drove past, once again casting it’s headlights down the alley and illuminating the them. Roy went pale and stumbled backwards.

“You’re—!!” He choked out, staring up at Jason in shock. “You’re supposed to be dead. No this isn't real, you’re dead.” He insisted to himself. Jason didn’t argue with him on that front, he was clearly going through withdrawal and right now Jason’s priority was to get him off the street. He picked Roy up easily, the guy was thin as a rail and even without super strength Jason probably still would have been able to lift him like he weighed nothing.

“Jason…? Jason I’m sorry.” Roy was babbling, clinging to the fabric of Jason’s sweatshirt desperately and he chewed on the inside of his cheek. This was a bad idea. If Roy ended up telling everyone he was alive that would really throw a wrench in things. Roy probably knew other mask types  and that was a group he did not want up in his business.

“I don’t know who Jason is man, my name is Peter Reyes.” The lie felt wrong on his lips but it’s what he had to do. Better to let the world think he was still dead.

“Oh…”

“I think you’re going through withdrawal. How do you feel?”

“Cold, Shit— Ahn my gut is on fire.” He grimaced, and Jason nodded. All symptoms of heroin withdrawal.

“Alright, I’m gonna get you some place safe. Hold tight buddy.” He adjusted Roy on his shoulder, hoping the man wouldn’t throw up on his hoodie and walked south until he found a shitty motel. He helped Roy lean against the outside of the front desk and gave him a stern look.

“Wait here okay. I’m gonna get us a room.” Roy didn’t answer, instead he doubled over in pain his shoulders shuddering as tremors ran through his body.

The woman at the front desk didn’t even blink as she handed Jason the room key, and Jason figured she had seen a hell of lot weirder things. He dragged Roy up to room and to the bathroom, helping him kneel over to toilet as he began to wretch, holding his greasy hair out of his face.

Deja-vu made his head spin, the feeling like he’d been in this exact same situation before and when he looked down it wasn’t Roy puking into the shitty hotel toilet it was… some woman, with messy hair dyed bright red and smeared makeup. She looked like she had been crying, and looking at her made Jason feel angry and sad at the same time. She had the same track marks up her arms that Roy did, and the look she gave Jason was a complicated mix of pity and disgust.

“Drink some water.” Jason grunted, his brain snapping back to the present, to the man before him. “You need to stay hydrated.”

“Thanks…” Roy said wearily, taking the water bottle Jason pushed into his hands. He took a few slow sips, his hands still shaking before he asked “Do I know you? You said you’re not Ja— who I thought you were so who are you? I don’t know any Peter Reyes. Did Angel send you? Because you can tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Don’t know any angel. I’m just a guy who wants to help.”

“Yeah sure, and I'm Superman. What were you doing snooping around in that place anyway?” Even going through withdrawal he was still observant as hell. Jason had a feeling that Roy was a hell of a lot smarter than he let on.

“None of your business."

“Right, whatever guess I’m in no position to argue. So why are you doing this? I assume you’re trying to help me and you’re not actually a deranged psycho killer who brought me here to rape and murder me and then leave my disfigured body in the bathtub, because right now this whole situation kind of reads like a Criminal Minds episode.” Jason snorted at that and shook his head.

“Nah, you’re not worth the trouble.”

“Wow, fuckin’ rude.” Roy’s laugh was thin but genuine and he pushed himself up a little so he was leaning against the sink. “But seriously, what do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“I saw, fuh-fuck shit… I saw you jump out of that building. You a mutant?” He grunted gratefully when Jason brought over the comforter from off the bed and let him wrap himself in it. “You know about me? You gotta… That’s- that’s why you came. You want me to build you somethin’.” So he had a tech mutation or something? Jason was lucky that he had recognized Roy’s name, the fact that he couldn’t remember the details of his mutation— or if he was a mutant wasn’t surprising.

“No. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it. Why the fuck are you doing this?”

“Maybe I was hoping that you’d, y’know… Fall in love with me.” Jason wasn’t sure why he said it, and the second he did he felt like a fucking idiot, but he smiled boyishly and owned it. Roy laughed out loud when he said it and Jason liked that laugh.

“Oh yeah, that is such bullshit.” He said, grinning as he wiped his runny nose and scratched his face. “Trust me kid you don’t want me to fall in love with you. My ex-wife can tell you that much.”

Jason just shrugged in response, sitting down in front of Roy on the hard tile floor with a sigh.

“Can I ask you something?”

Roy raised a curious eyebrow but shrugged. “Sure.”

“Who’s— Who was Jason? The person you thought I was…” There was something in Roy’s eyes that he couldn’t place— grief maybe. Over some street rat kid like him?

“He was a kid I knew…” Roy looked up at the ceiling for a moment, shifting restlessly. “He was a good kid, he was smart, god he was so smart, and he was funny and brave, like crazy brave, like run into a burning house and save the puppy brave… and he died when he was fifteen.” Jason swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. “I used to be one of those superheroes you know, running around in a mask and shit— I know right, funny huh. I knew it was dangerous but none of that had ever seemed real until he… He saved my ass when we were kids, this one time in Pasadena he pushed me out of the way of some gunfire and ended up getting his dumb ass shot.”

Jason’s side tingled, his body remembering the sensation of a bullet passing through it. “He never let me hear the end of it, always making jabs at me reminding me how I owed him my life and how he got shot for me and shit but I never got to thank him, not genuinely you know? That eats at me every day. I think if he ever saw me now, and how I ended up he would kick my ass. ‘I saved your life for this? So you could become some piece of shit junkie?!’  but he showed us all what it really meant to be a hero. To wear the mask.” Roy shook his head to himself and Jason was shocked into silence. Was that really how he was remembered? As a hero? The thought left him shook to his very core and suddenly he couldn’t stand to hear about it anymore. He had to get away. He pushed himself up so violently it startled Roy.

“You don’t know that… Maybe he wasn’t as great as you think.” He said through his clenched jaw, his fists curled into a tight ball before he crossed the small distance to the hotel room door and slammed it behind him. He scrubbed angrily at his face, rubbing his eyes until he saw stars behind his eyelids. Then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up, taking a long drag and letting it burn to the filter before he even considered going back inside that room. He smoked a second cigarette before he did, slower this time his hands no longer shaking.

This was a mistake. Coming to this city was a mistake, looking for Roy was a mistake. Fuck even just leaving Talia’s protection was a mistake. He would take being a blood bag for fucking Ra’s over this feeling. It felt like it was eating him inside out, hollowing him and filling the hole with molten rock. He wanted to throw up, he wanted to start a fight, he wanted to run. He smoked another cigarette instead.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!! He ground the cigarette out on the wall of the motel with venom (the stucco was already disgusting, another black mark wouldn’t make a difference) before he came back inside. The smell of cigarette smoke drifting in with him, clinging to his clothes and making Roy sit up straighter, his fingers itching at his arms idly.

“You good?”

“Yeah. Just needed a smoke.”

“Got one for me?”

“My last one, sorry.” It was a deadass lie and Roy knew it, but he didn’t push the issue. “I’m gonna order pizza. What do you want?”

“Pineapple, anchovies with mushroom.”

“You’re disgusting. No, fuck you we’re getting meat lovers.” The ghost of a smile played on Roy’s lips and he shrugged.

“Whatever you say bossman.”

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND July 19, 2019 – DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME, THE LION KING

Before we get to the big studio release… which I haven’t seen… I’m gonna focus on a new doc opening in New York and L.A. on Friday, DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME (Sony Pictures Classics). Directed by A.J. Eaton and produced by Cameron Crowe, this movie surprised me first and foremost because I never really had much interest in Crosby Stills and Nash, so I wasn’t sure if I’d really care much to hear Crosby’s story. (Granted, one of my favorite bands, Yes, was hugely influenced by CSN.)

Much of the film is made up of interviews with Crosby conducted by Crowe, who first interviewed Crosby when he was a young journalist in the ‘70s. There are some real revelations in the film – similar to the recent Marianne and Leonard– including Crosby admitting that he got a number of girlfriends hooked on drugs. He also lost a girlfriend in a car accident that deeply affected him, although it’s also interesting to hear from some of his bandmates like Graham Nash, who claim that Crosby is not the nice guy some might perceive.

Whether or not you’re interested in Crosby and his life/career, Remember My Name is a fascinating look at a pivotal person from the ‘60s and earliest days of rock, another great doc from Crowe, who should really be doing more about the history of music.

I may have mentioned before that I have practically zero interest in Walt Disney Pictures’ THE LION KING, even though I am a long-time fan of director Jon Favreau’s work… except The Jungle Book, in which I was disappointed. Maybe it’s just because I was such a fan of the original animated movie and Rudyard Kipling’s book, but not having any immediately connection to the 1994 Disney animated movie, nothing has really gotten me excited to see this one.

You can actually read more about The Lion King over at The Beat.

Bleecker Street also hopes to expand Jesse Eisenberg’s dark comedy THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE nationwide into over 500 theaters, which seems a bit forward, considering that it didn’t fare nearly as well as A24’s The Farewell in limited release last weekend.

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the regular fare, on Wednesday, Trafalgar Releasing is the Trey Anastasio doc Between Me and My Mind in theaters across the nation on Wednesday night. Being a fan of Trey and Phish and having seen this at the Tribeca Film Festival, I can say that it’s a MUST-SEE for anyone who has ever enjoyed Trey’s vast output both with Phish and his solo groups. Besides showing Trey in the writing and production process for his latest solo album, it also shows him and the members of Phish preparing for the 2017 New Year’s Eve run at Madison Square Garden. Director Steven Cantor was given amazing access to Trey, as he also filmed a few personal conversations the singer/guitarist/songwriter has with his parents about their history together. I’m actually going to see it again tonight.. but if you’re in the New York area, go see it at the Alamo Drafthouse, where it’s hosted by the awesome Jordan Hoffman. (6:30pm show is already sold out but they’ve added a 9:20 showing.)

A couple other docs this weekend include Radu Jude’s Romanian dark comedy I Do Not Care If We Go down in History as Barbarians, which opens at the IFC Center. It’s about the dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who started a program of ethnic cleansing in the summer of 1941, something that’s recreated in present day by an idealistic theater director, causing controversy. It opens at the IFC Center on Friday.

Also opening at the IFC Center is Tilman Singer’s German horror film Luz (Screen Media), about a young cab driver who has been contending with a possessed woman who can endanger many lives. Lastly and also at the IFC Center, there’s Paddy Breachnach’s Rosie, the story of a mother trying to protect her homeless family, covering their struggle over 36 hours.

Joe Manganiello from Magic Mike and his wife Sofia Vergara from Modern Family star in  Raymond De Felitta’s Bottom of the 9th (Saban Films) about a baseball player named Bobby Setano, who ends up in jail at the age of 19 just as his career is taking off. 20 years later, he is tryng to win back everything he lost in this movie from the director of the excellent City Island and Rob the Mob. It’s in select theaters, On Demand and digital platforms.

There are two new docs opening at the Metrograph Friday:

Martin Bell’s Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell is a follow-up to his 1984 film Streetwise (see “Repertory” below), this one following up on that film’s 14-year-old subject “Tiny” and what she’s been through since then, going from drug addiction to poverty, having given birth to ten children. There’s also Marie Losier’sCassandro, the Exotico! (Film Movement) looking at the 47-year-old Saul Armendariz aka Cassandro, the openly gay champion of the Mexican exotico wrestling circuit, which features competitors in drag. The film is shot entirely on 16mm.

I just want to draw special attention to New York’s Village East Cinemas, which really has turned itself around with the variety of films and programs it’s offering, partially to compete with some of the new and revitalized arthouses. This week, it has three new movies, beginning with At War (Cinema Libre Studios), the new film from French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man), once again teaming him with  Vincent Lindon as Laurent Amédéo, the spokesman for a company that is going to shut down its factory, putting over a thousand employees out of work.

The Village East is also one of the theaters showing Aaron Harvey’s Into the Ashes (RLJEntertainment), starring Luke Grimes as former criminal Nick Brenner who believe he has escaped his past until his old crew shows up for the money he stole from them, taking  Nick’s wife and putting him on a path for revenge.

I know very little Steve Barron’s Supervized except that it’s about four aging superheroes in an Irish retirement home and it stars the likes of Beau Bridges, Louis Gossett Jr., Tom Berenger and Fionnula Flanagan.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

This weekend at the IFC Center is the first-ever 51 Fest, honoring the “female majority on screen” by paying tribute to the women of the world with an amazing line-up of films.  The fest opens at the SVA Theater on Thursday night with Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story and then continues at the IFC Center with the New York Premieres of Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding remake starring Julianne Moore, Paul Downs Colaizzo’s terrific Brittany Runs a Marathon (with a QnA hosted by my pal Ophira Eisenberg), Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’s doc For Sama and more. The fest will also host the World Premiere of Lisa Cholodenko’s episode of the Netflix series Unbelievable with Cholodenko and actors Kaitlyn Dever, Danielle Macdonald and Merritt Weaver appearing in person. In general, this seems like a strong new festival with lots of talent attending, so here’s hoping that this becomes a regular annual thing.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Premiering on Netflix Friday is Peter Sullivan’s suspense thriller SECRET OBSESSION, starring Brenda Song (The Social Network) as a newlywed who is brutally attacked at a rest stop leaving her with amnesia. As her husband (Mike Vogel) takes care of her at home, a detective (Dennis Haysbert) goes looking for her attacker who also might have kidnapped his daughter.

I’m more excited about the return of Jerry Seinfeld’s series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” with its new season, as it’s one of my favorite Netflix series by far.

REPERTORY

Although there aren’t a ton of limited releases this week, it’s an exciting time for repertory fans for reasons you’ll discover as you go through the entries below.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

To tie-in with the release of Tiny (see above), the Metrograph is also screening of a new restoration of Martin Bell’s 1984 film Streetwise, about the kids who would gather on downtown Seattle’s Pike Street. This weekend’sLate Nites at Metrograph  is the movie musical classic, Alan Arkush’s 1979 movie Rock ‘n’ Roll High School starring the Ramones!Playtime: Family Matineesgoes with Disney’s 1979 film The Black Hole on 35mm, and you can bet I’ll be there for that.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

As we get closer to the release of Tarantino’s 9thfilm, his rep theater will continues its James Bond series with Thunderball as the Weds. matinee and then both Weds and Thurday night is a grindhouse TRIPLE FEATURE (!!!) of Curtis Hanson’s 1972 film Sweet Kill with 1973’s Soul Hustler (with Larry Bishop in person) and the 1971 film Sweet Saviour.  The Friday/Saturday double feature is Mervyn Le Roy’s Gipsy (1962) with Sidney Pollack’s This Property is Condemned (1966), while Sunday and Monday is a Fabian double feature of Ride the Wild Surf  (1964) and Thunder Alley (1967), the latter co-starring Annette Funicello. This weekend’s KIDDEE MATINE continues the Love Bug series with Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo from 1977. Tarantino’s own Django Unchained is the Friday midnight movie with something called I Love You, Alice b. Toklas (1968), starring Peter Sellers (!), on Saturday at midnight. Monday’s matinee is the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries, starring a VERY young Leonardo DiCaprio. Tuesday night’s official GRINDHOUSE triple feature is Joe Namath’s CC & Company(1970), along with two Jack Starrett films, The Losers  from 1970 and Hollywood Man from 1976. I understand that many of the films being programmed are ones that had an influence on Tarantino’s upcoming film Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood, which hits American theaters across the country next week.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Not be outdone by the younger New York “upstart-house” theaters, Film Forum is kicking off a month-long Burt Lancaster seriesbeginning with a week-long 4k restoration of Robert Siodmak’s (1946) The Killers, starring Lancaster and Ava Gardner. The series will then continue with classics like the Sweet Smell of Success and From Here to Eternity starting Friday, July 26, so check back next week for more on this series. Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying (1957) will end Thursday to make room for above.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

On Wednesday, comedian Greg Proops screens the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryas part of his “Greg Proops Film Club.” The “Highballs and Screwballs” series continues Thursday with Humphrey Bogart’s Key Largo  (1948) with The Palm Beach Story  (1942). On Friday, the Egyptian does a “Mikhail Kalatozov double feature” of The Cranes are Flying  (1957) and I Am Cuba  (1964), Saturday afternoon is the latest in the “Style of Sin: Pre-Code Film with Kimberly Truhler” series with two starring Kay Francis, Girls about Town (1931) and Jewel Robbery  (1933), both in 35mm, while Saturday night is a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 classic Stalker.

Just a reminder that the AERO is closed for the month of July for “repairs and upgrades” but will be back in August with its own entries in the “Highballs and Screwballs” series.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

I’m pretty excited about the second part of the Quad’s Fresh Meat: Giallo Restorations Part II, starting on Friday. I havent’ seen a single one of the movies but with titles like The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire and Strip Nude for Your Killer, I have to try to see some of these for sure.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

FilmLinc’s new summer series is This is Cinema Now: 21st Century Debuts, which is fairly self-explanatory but features fairly new films including Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy, screening in a double feature with Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Hawith Maren Ade’s The Forest for the Trees, Shane Caruth’s Primer with Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, and many more with many screening  twice but a lot only screening once. Some of them are playing as two-for-one double features and if I wasn’t dealing with Comic-Con stuff, I’d totally go see the Damien Chazelle/Barry Jenkins double feature on Saturday night.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Friday, BAM begins a series called “Intimate Epics” which includes everything from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia  (1999) to Hu Bo’s very recent Elephant Sitting Still to Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai (1954). It runs through the weekend until Tuesday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

On Friday, IFC Center will present a 60thAnniversary revival of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest in a new 4k restoration. Still no word on when it’s new series will begin but presumably soon.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The Astoria arthouse begins a retrospective called “Barbara Hammer, Superdyke” on Friday, which runs through Sunday, July 28, honoring the late filmmaker with a number of shorts series under the titles “Mediated Sensuality,” “Ecstatic Subjectivity,” “Hall of Mirrors” and more. I really don’t know anything about her films but you can learn more at the link above.

ROXY CINEMA# (NYC)

Weds. and Sunday, the Roxy shows a 35mm print of the 1964 thriller Marnie, while on Thursday, there’s a very rare screening of Roman Polanski’s 1967 dark comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday night’s midnight offering is Gaspar Noé’s Climaxfrom earlier in the year.. so not old enough to be considered “repertory,” huh?

Next week, it’s all about Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood! (Seeing it Monday and I’ll have a review next Tuesday.)