#tension over Honk Kong

[realcleargoodtimes]

COMING SOON-CHINA DEEP FREZEE FOR STUDENTS

The move, first reported by the New York Times, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students and could be announced as early as this week, according to the sources, including a current U.S. official and another individual who was briefed on the administration's internal discussions.

The United States and China are at loggerheads over China's decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could erode its freedoms and jeopardize its role as a global financial hub.

Chinese students who are in the United States will have their visas canceled and will be expelled, the source briefed on the plans said, while those already outside the United States will not be allowed to return.

The main purpose of the action is to clamp down on spying and intellectual property theft that some Chinese nationals are suspected of engaging in on U.S. university and college campuses, the source said, adding that the administration expected significant push back from those institutions because of their financial interests in Chinese student enrollment.

Some 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend U.S. schools annually generate economic activity of about $14 billion, largely from tuitions and other fees.

The decision on the visas is likely to further sour ties between the world's top two economies - also at odds over the coronavirus pandemic and trade.

Deliberations on the visa move have been in the works for months, the sources said. While not directly related to the tensions over Hong Kong, the timing appears to be part of "an overall pressure campaign" against China that has intensified in recent months, the source familiar with discussions said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress China had undermined Hong Kong's autonomy so fundamentally he could not support recertifying the city's special pre-1997 trading status established when it was a British colony.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham)

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Reopen Movie Theaters Edition 8/21/20: UNHINGED, PENINSULA, THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS, TESLA and More!

Well, this is the weekend when movie theaters are supposed to reopen, whether it’s some of the big chains like Regal or AMC, even though, Canada is well ahead of us, having opened about 300 theaters last weekend. A few of the movies in this week’s column will supposedly only be released only in theaters, while a few of them have already given up on theatrical to go the streaming route. I really don’t know what to tell you if you live in New York and L.A. except that pre-COVID, you used to get all the movies first, so I guess we better get used to things flipping thanks to the pandemic. Either way, there’s an INSANE number of new movies this week, and I’m going to do my best to cover all of them… or at least the ones that I know exist.

And then on top of all THAT, the annual Fantasia Festival in Montreal is starting this week in a virtual edition filled with literally hundreds of genre films, and lots of great films from Asia in particular, and man, I wish I had time to watch more of the movies they’re offering. I’ve only been up to Fantasia in person a few times, and both times were great experiences. Much of that has to do with the audience, which is mostly made up of college-age and older genre fans who enthusiastically lap up every minute of genre awesome that Fantasia delivers. Sadly, it’s very much the type of festival that benefits from being together in person, especially at the end of the night when filmmakers and fans alike converge on one of the local drinking holes.

One of the movies I did have a chance to watch was Justin McConnell’s Clapboard Jungle: Surviving the Independent Film Business, an intriguing doc that follows the director of Lifechanger on his five-year journey to get that movie made. It involves a lot of schmoozing and networking at festivals like Fantasia (in their Frontiéres market, which I’ve never attended) and Cannes, basically struggling to sell his ideas to financers and trying to focus on other ventures (like short films) in the meantime. It’s a sobering film for anyone wanting to become a filmmaker, because McConnell doesn’t leave any moment of utter heartbreak on the cutting room floor on his journey to make a movie that I have literally never heard of! So yeah, I guess calling your movie “Lifechanger” could end up being more ironic than you set out to, but what McConnell has in this movie is some great advice and anecdotes from some of the greatest horror filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, Richard Stanley, Larry Fessenden, Sid Haig, Mick Garris. I mean, if they’ve been involved in any aspect of indie horror over the past five years, they’re in this movie, and often, it’s more worthwhile listening to them than following McConnell’s own journey.

I hope to have more to say about Fantasia over the next few weeks as it runs through September 2, but I gotta get to the crazy number of movies opening this week, and again, a few of them are in theaters.

Speaking of movie theaters, Russell Crowe stars in the action-thriller UNHINGED (Solstice Studios), which will presumably ONLY be seen in movie theaters this weekend, reportedly 2,000 theaters that will not include either New York or California, the two biggest movie markets in the country. Sigh. Let’s just get on with this…

Directed by Derrick Borte (The Joneses), Crowe plays a violent and angry white man – can’t wait for THOSE think pieces, he said sarcastically – who is literally honked at by Caren Pistorious’ soon-to-be-divorced mother who is late bringing her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) to school. He does what every sane person would do… he proceeds to terrorize her, kill her loved ones and do everything he can to teach her a lesson. America, what a wonderful place, huh?

Those going to see this movie to literally watch Crowe come unhinged won't have to wait too long, as we meet his character as he’s attacking a family and burns down their house, before we’re subjected to an opening credit montage of the type of anger and violence that’s permeated this country over the past few years. We then meet Pistorius’ Rachel as she tries to cope while facing a divorce and trying to get her son to school when she has what would normally be a fairly innocuous encounter with Crowe’s character that drives what is clearly an already insane man over the endge.

There’s something about Unhinged that reminds me of the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, but that’s only if you consider Crowe the protagonist of the movie, which I certainly don’t. That would be Pistorius’ character, who finds herself being tormented as this man starts following her around and making an already bad day even worse, just to make her feel as miserable as he does. Yeah, it’s not a great movie for current times, but you at least have to give it credit for having a title that gives you exactly what you’re paying to see.

Borte does a pretty decent job creating tension, although parts of it end up being unintentionally funny due to how over-the-top and absurd the whole thing is. At least it all builds up to an amazing final car chase, driven by David Buckley’s score, and that more or less makes up for how ridiculous the movie’s high concept premise gets earlier. While Unhinged has its moments of silliness, I honestly haven’t gotten as excited watching a movie over the past few months as I did watching it – your road rage may vary.

After opening in roughly 300 Canadian theaters last weekend, it will expand into North America in an estimated 2,000 theatres. Under most normal circumstances i.e. before March, I might try to predict how well it might do at the box office, I feel that the times have made it tougher or nearly impossible. (I’ll say it makes $2 to 3 million, just for a laugh.)

The movie I was MOST looking forward to seeing this week was Yeon Sang-Ho’s TRAIN TO BUSAN PRESENTS: PENINSULA (Well Go USA/Shudder), which as you may guess from the title is the sequel to his 2016 zombie flick, Train to Busan. This one takes place four years later as a group of Koreans that have evacuated to Hong Kong before the country was shut off from the rest of the world are sent back to retrieve a truck full of American money that could make them rich beyond belief. Not only do they have to contend with zombies but ruthless military gangs that make their mission more difficult.

Listen, Train to Busan was so good as its own standalone movie, we really didn’t need a sequel to see what was going on with that world, but Director Yeon clearly had some idea what that world might look like years later, and it’s a pretty scary place. Paying tribute equally to movies like The Road Warrior and Escape from New York, he decided to introduce some new characters and follow their journey.  We meet Kim Do-won’s Cheol-min as he’s taking his wife and son to a ship that’s going to take survivors from the first zombie wave to Japan. Things don’t go as planned and Cheol-min is one of the few survivors thanks to his military brother-in-law Jung-seok (Dong-Won Gang), but the two end up stranded in Hong Kong as the borders of Korea are closed. Four years later, they’re given the incentive to go back to Korea to retrieve the money, and of course, things don’t go as planned. After being attacked first by zombies and then the gang-like military group Unit 631, led by Min-jae Kim’s Sgt. Kwang and Gyo-han Kwoo’s Captain Seo, Jung-seok is saved by two young girls (Re Lee, Ye-Won Lee) and their mother, played by Jung-hyun Lee.

That’s the basic set-up for a film that doesn’t quite measure up to Train to Busan, not because director Yeon wasn’t trying. He clearly didn’t want to necessarily copy exactly what he did in the first movie, but also, he wasn’t able to completely replicate that film’s magic either. A lot of that may be since the characters aren’t nearly as interesting; they’re tougher and far more able to fight off the zombie swarms, which lowers the stakes considerably. Setting the movie further into an apocalypse just means it’s going to tread familiar territory, particularly from things like The Walking Dead.

Despite what I said above about the characters, I generally liked the cast, especially the spunky young girls who took on zombies and militia men alike, but I’ll admit I got more than a little confused about the two main guys, the brothers-in-law. They look so different in the opening sequence, I couldn’t figure out which was which when introduced for the body of the movie. Since this movie mostly takes place at night, it’s also harder to see the brilliant work done by the FX people and zombie actors, which is still pretty amazing to watch.

Peninsula makes for a pretty decent throwback action flick, and you can’t completely fault it for not having as many emotional beats throughout, because the ending is so overflowing with feels, it’s obvious Director Yeon has succeeded again.

Disney+ is premiering the family film THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN on its Disney+ streaming service this Friday. Directed by Thea Sharrock (Me Before You), it stars Bryan Cranston as Mack, the ringmaster of a strip mall circus whose star attraction is the gorilla, “The One and Only Ivan!” (as voiced by Sam Rockwell). The circus isn’t doing as well as it used to, so Mack has bought a baby elephant named Ruby (voiced by Brooklyn Prince) as a draw for the show’s other elephant Stella (voiced by Angela Jolie). Ivan isn’t too thrilled with the show’s new attraction, but he has other things on his mind, including a pesky dog named Bob (voiced by Danny DeVito) and others voiced by Hellen Mirren, Phillipa Soo… and yes, you’re reading this right… Chaka Khan!

It’s based on the children’s book by Katherine Applegate, adapted by the always great Mike White, and while at first glance, it might seem like a dangerous meld of Tim Burton’s Dumbo with the early 2020 dog Dolittle, there’s a lot more at work here. Sure, there’s a lot of the typical Disney kiddie-related humor – fart jokes and other visual gags – but it’s really about these CG animals and their feelings about their situation, and the elements used to create them and make them feel are superb. Cranston also does a good job maintaining his composure while getting involved in some of the film’s silliness.

Of course, you could just “aww” over the adorable elephant Ruby (basically a miniature version of the Jolie-voiced Stella) or laugh at the antics of the other animals. My favorite was definitely the De Vito-voiced dog, Bob, who offers some of the best jabs and gags, which helps keep the tone from ever getting too heavy without losing the dramatic weight. The movie even takes a cue from Madagascar for one sequence, but either way, it will keep you and your kids entertained.

The entire movie is very emotional, especially the last twenty minutes that might make it hard from having a good old ugly cry. This is a truly wonderful family film and one of the weekend’s nicer surprises. (Note: I also did a more technical review of the movie about things like cinematography and visual FX over at Below the Line.)

This week’s “Featured Flick” is WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS (LD Entertainment/Roadside Attractions), based on the novel by Julia Walton, which stars Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete) as Adam Petrozelli, a high school senior who discovers he suffers from schizophrenia that is far worse than just the voices he hears. It gets him expelled, but knowing he wants to go to culinary school, Adam’s mother (Molly Parker) enrolls him at St. Agatha’s Catholic school, where he tries to keep his condition a secret while being tutored by a brainy and quite attractive classmate, played by Taylor Russell (Waves).

If you read last week’s column, you’ll already know my reticence towards young adult fare. Even with that in mind, I do enjoy coming-of-age tales, especially those set in or around high school, and then if you throw in a bit of religion, some foodie culture and a little tinge of humor, even while dealing with a serious subject, you’ll probably have me on board. That’s definitely true about this movie, adapted by Thor Freudenthal, who makes a smooth transition from kiddie fare to older kiddie fare with a really unique look at one young teen’s journey through an important moment in his life while dealing with a condition that some are never able to overcome.

Having not read the original book or anything about the movie before seeing it, I was a little surprised when things go haywire in Adam’s science class, since I thought maybe he was a mutant. We then meet three characters who will follow him around (at least in his head) for much of the movie, played by Anna Sophia Robb, Devon Bostick and Lobo Sebastian, each representing a part of Adam’s psyche: kind of like the devil and angel telling you what to do in any given situation. It’s quite witty and a clever way to bring some humor into many scenes, particularly Sebastian’s role as “The Bodyguard,” carrying a baseball bat, ready to attack anything that keeps Adam from achieving his goal of being a chef. I loved how the three characters interplayed as a Greek chorus with what was happening.

Adam eventually meets Russell’s Maya, the perky, snarky and super smart St. Agatha’s Valedictorian, who he convinces to tutor him in math, while also trying to hide his biggest secret from her. As Adam starts taking a new medication, the voices and his companions start disappearing, but he also learns there are negative side effects. There was a lot to enjoy about this movie, but it was particularly interesting how Freudenthal uses sound and CG FX to recreate what’s going through Adam’s mind when he’s off his meds.

The film coasts gracefully on the general likability of both Plummer and Russell during the highs and lows of their relationship, but I also enjoyed the adults cast around them, including Molly Parker as his mother, Walton Goggins as her overly-cloying live-in boyfriend, and Andy Garcia as a compassionate padre, who all have great scenes with Plummer, bringing many more layers to the characters and story than we normally might get.

Words on Bathroom Walls is an absolutely wonderful movie – for me, it’s this year’s Book Smart -- and a very pleasant surprise at a time when I’m super-cynical about movies that I’m forced to watch on my laptop. Besides being a really original coming-of-age film, it also finds a way to deal with schizophrenia in a head-on way that hopefully gets others to understand a mental illness that makes it hard to live a normal life.

Michael Almereyda writes, directs and produces TESLA (IFC Films), which as you may guess is not a biopic about Elon Musk, but is actually a very different biopic about inventor Nikola Tesla, as played by Almereyda regular, Ethan Hawke. The film follows Tesla through his early relations with Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan) but more importantly the women, including Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), who narrates the semi-fictionalized account of Tesla’s life.

If you saw last year’s The Current War, you may be wondering why we need another movie about Nikola Tesla that covers some of the very same ground. I’ll get to that in a moment. Using IMDB, I can probably figure out how many movies Almereyda and Hawke have made together, but I’d have a harder time figuring out if Almereyda has made a single movie I’ve liked, and believe me, I’ve tried. That’s partially what makes Tesla such an interesting endeavor, since it might be Almereyday’s most daring and accomplished work to date.

You have to assume The Current War was already made and out there by the time Almereyda even started making this since that played at Toronto many years ago. Apparently, Almereyda had his own vision and decided to make it, undaunted, because this is certainly a rather unique take. It’s narrated by JP Morgan’s youngest daughter Anne, played by Hewson, but she does so in a way that’s almost out of time, even mentioning Google. For the most part, Almereyda and his cast stick with the period, but there are definitely a few moments like that where it veers into an almost surreal fictionalized version of events.

What really makes Tesla standout is the subdued performance by Hawke where he never goes overboard with Tesla’s Eastern-European accent (unlike Tesla’s associate Szigeti who often sounds like Borat). More importantly, Almereyda decides to tell Tesla’s story through his tentative relationship with women. You see, he never got married, and yet, he meets all these beautiful women along the way who have an impact on his life and career, mostly Anne who provides him with her father’s money but also the intriguing actress Sarah Bernhardt (played by Rebecca Dayan) and others. There are still some of the other players like Edison (played by Kyle MacLachlan) and though I like the interesting turn in Jim Gaffigan’s career into dramatic roles, I did prefer Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse in The Current War.

Regardless, Tesla is just such a gorgeous film that delivers a biopic unlike others using a very distinctive tone, maybe even with a nod or two to David Lynch, and that’s what helps set it apart from Almereyda’s previous work.

Wu-tang Clan founder The RZA directs his third movie, CUT THROAT CITY (Well GO USA), a crime-drama set in post-Katrina New Orleans, starring Shameik Moore (Dope) as James aka Blink, a cartoonist from the Lower 9th Ward, who, along with three of his drugdealer buddies (Denzel Whitaker, Demetrius Shipp Jr, Keean Johnson), are coerced by T.I.’s vicious druglord, “Cousin” Bass, into robbing a casino that puts them in the crosshairs of the local police and others.

There’s something on paper about this movie, written by P.G. Cuschieri, that seems a little been-there done-that, although the cast The RZA has put together – including Ethan Hawke, Rob Hunter, Wesley Snipes, Isaiah Washington and Terrence Howard – some in smaller roles – is just so impressive you just can’t ignore it. RZA is also working with a decent script, one with a few tonal and pacing issues, but also one tht maintains a youthful energy that feels authentic to the time and place.

It takes a little time to get to the actual heist, which paves the way for everything else that happens, including a few deaths. It’s after that where we meet Detective Lucida Valencia (played by Eiza González), who is trying to solve the case of the casino robbery, as more parties get involved, including a City Councilman played by Hawke and some of their fathers. Rob Hunter is fantastic as Blink’s father, who delivers some mighty fine scenes, but others, like Snipes and Howard, have fairly small roles. At first, Hawke’s role seems like a mere cameo, but when he returns almost an hour into the movie, he delivers quite an impassioned monologue that proves his worth in any sized role. It’s a sign of a good director to cast such great actors them step aside an let them do their thing.

Cut Throat City is definitely one of those movies that gets better as it goes along, although it’s by no means an “action movie” in terms of how it deals with the situation in New Orleans that turns so many young men like James/Blink to crime to earn a living. It sometimes gets bogged down in its dialogue and drama and things might not come together as well as hoped, but right now, as a director, the RZA might end up being the unlikely successor to the Singleton legacy.

Jay Baruchel adapts the comic book RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (Shudder) by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. It follows Todd Walkley, a graphic novel writer played by Jesse Williams, who goes on a road trip with his wife Kathy (Jordana Brewster), for them to follow the trail and study the murders of the serial killer that inspired Todd’s hit comic book character “Slasherman.” Along for the journey is Todd’s best friend Ezra (Baruchel) and art assistant Aurora (Niamh Wilson).

Although I had read the original comic book on which this is based, it was a long time ago. I clearly forgot how dark it was, especially since in this case, the quartet’s story starts in far lighter and fun way. I assume Baruchel and his co-writer Jesse Chabot did this intentionally. It isn’t long before a killer in a welder’s outfit starts brutally killing people and leaving the bodies where our heroes can find them. Turns out that it’s a copycat who is recreating the murders in Todd’s comic.

Baruchel does a decent job with his second feature as a director, which is surprising since his first movie was a hockey comedy, which would have been right up his wheelhouse. Goon: Last of the Enforcers also was tougher since it was a sequel to a really good movie, but Baruchel shows that he has a real handle on horror, especially when it comes to making it as disturbing as anything out there.  He has able help in cinematographer Karim Hussain, who gives the film such a stark look with bright green and red lighting, as well as the make-up FX team who create some truly grotesque murder victims.

I’m not usually a fan of slasher films so much, but Random Acts of Violence takes the interesting spin on the genre from the comics and adds new elements that really elevate the original story. (For one, Niamh Wilson’s character was terrific, and she’s completely original to the movie.) These elements and just the overall look and tone makes Baruchel’s adaptation one of the more effective horror films I’ve seen this year.

Indie filmmaker Aaron B. Koontz (Camera Obscura) returns with his second feature, the horror-Western THE PALE DOOR (RLJE Films/Shudder). It’s about two brothers, Duncan Dalton (Zachary Knighton) and his younger brother Jake (Devin Druid), who lead a motley group on a failed bank robbery. After Duncan is injured, they find a girl named Pearl chained in the wilderness, and they follow her back to a ghost town to get Duncan medical aid where they’re brought to a brothel that turns out to be a coven of witches.

I don’t want to fully shit on this movie, because it has a few elements of merit, but honestly, none of them show up until roughly 51 minutes into the movie when it transforms from a fairly lame Western into a semi-decent horror flick. The movie is co-written by Keith Lansdale, who you might guess is the son of Joe R. Lansdale (an EP on the movie), who is kind of legendary for his horror-Westerns. Instead, The Pale Door spends the first half following overused Western tropes but not particularly well-written ones, and everything just looks too clean and bright without the grit that’s necessary to make a Western work. Granted I’ve seen a LOT of Westerns in my day but there are so many great ones even of similar budget, like Ti West’s In a Valley of Violence, so there’s little excuse for how badly this one falters.

Amidst the mostly bad cast, Koontz does have a few ringers like Pat Healy (from Ti West’s The Innkeepers!) and Stan Shaw, the latter as Lester, the former slave who becomes a substitute father for the brothers and who has some great moments in the last half of the movie. After the big reveal of the witches, things do generally get better and the ending is quite touching, as it strikes a nice note about brotherhood. But all of the stuff up until that point just isn’t very good on so many levels. It’s almost as if Koontz was learning how to make a movie while actually making the movie. (This is something more common on someone’s first movie, though.) Even the fact this movie is basically about brave men fighting evil women just isn’t a particularly good look for a movie right now. The Pale Door is a movie that needed to be better from the jump, and also get to some of the more exciting and gory stuff faster, since it’s just going to lose too many people before it finally shakes things up.

Actor Peter Facinelli (from The Twilight Saga, among other things) writes and directs the suspense thriller, THE VANISHED (Saban Films), starring Thomas Jane and Anne Heche of a ten-year-old girl, Taylor, who disappears while they’re RVing at a lakeside camp, causing them to do all sorts of unexpected things in order to find her.

I’m not sure whether I was more surprised that this was based on true events before or after actually watching it, because this movie gets pretty cray-cray, and that’s in the same week where we have Russell Crowe in Unhinged! Unfortunately, Facinelli’s sophomore effort as a filmmaker – that seems to be a theme this week -- comes across like a bland TV movie that doesn’t offer anything new from ‘90s thrillers like Fatal Attraction or I Know What You Did Last Summer, other than maybe some overacting from Heche or general sleaziness from Jane. It also stars a barely-recognizable ‘90s star Jason Patric as the town sheriff trying to find the couple’s daughter along with his deputy (Facinelli, who else?).

Very quickly, the couple get so desperate to find their daughter they start killing anyone they think might be responsible. By an hour into the movie, everyone is still a suspect, including the guy who runs the camp who (just by coincidence) happens to be part of a pedophile ring. UGH. The problem is that Facinelli throws red herring after the red herring at the viewer, leading up to one of the biggest “What the Holy F?!” endings that would likely make Shyamalan proud. The Vanished wears out its welcome pretty quickly and just leaves you wondering how much of it is true… and mind you, this is in a week where we have a movie with a talking gorilla, who also happens to be an artist… and that’s also based on a true story!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get to some of these other movies or won’t have time to review, and hopefully you’ll check some of them out.

A genre film that looks pretty cool is Jimmy Henderson’s THE PREY (Dark Star Pictures) that follows Xin (Gu Shangwei), a Chinese undercover cop on a secret mission who ends up in a remote Cambodian jungle prison where the warden (Vithaya Pansringarm from Only God Forgives) sells his prey to rich hunters looking to go after “the Most Dangerous Game.” Yup, this is the second movie this year (after The Hunt) inspired by that short story. I’ll try to add some thoughts if I have a chance to see it before week’s end

Oscar-winning BlackKklansman writer Kevin Willmott writes and directs THE 24th (Vertical Entertainment) is about the all-black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Region and how 156 African-American soldiers held a mutiny in Houston as protest to the violence and abuse at the hands of the city’s police. The film stars Trai Byers, Bashir Salahuddin, Aja Nomi King and Thomas Haden Church.

Bummed I didn’t get to watch Thom Fitzgerald’s STAGE MOTHER (Momentum Pictures) in time to review since it has such a great cast that includes Lucy Liu, Jacki Weaver, Andrian Grenier and Mya Taylor from Tangerine. Weaver plays Maybelline, a Texas church choir director who inherits her late son’s drag club in San Francisco so she goes there to save it from bankruptcy.

Of this week’s docs, I’m most interested in Barbara Koppel’s DESERT ONE (Greenwich), which looks at the 1980 rescue attempt by U.S. Special Forces to rescue American hostages held in Iran (as seen in Argo) with interviews with President Jimmy Carter, Vice President Walter Mondal, Ted Koppel and both hostages and hostage takers. I haven’t had a chance to watch it, but Koppel is an amazing doc filmmaker, and I’m sure it’s a fantastic movie. Just need to find the time to watch.

I did get to watch Danny Wolf’s Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies (Quiver Distribution), which not only has the most self-explanatory title of any doc ever made but is also quite comprehensive in covering how nudity has been used in movies going all the way back to the pre-Code and silent film days. No surprise that Wolf is the director of the highly-enjoyable Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time series, because he gets just as many interesting names and faces on this movie, including Malcolm McDowell, Peter Bogdanovich, Pam Grier, Amy Heckerling and more. This is actually a really good doc for the cinephile completist who wants to know everything (or just watch) every semi-famous nude scene that people have been talking about over the past 100 years.

I didn’t have nearly as much interest in P. David Ebersole & Todd Hughes’s House of Cardin, which gets a virtual cinema release this Friday before its On Demand release on September 15. I’m just not into fashion. More my speed is Dana Brown’s new doc A Life of Endless Summers:  The Bruce Brown Story (1091) about his father who became famous for his surfing movies. Also on Thursday, you can catch Ric Burns’ doc Oliver Sacks: His Own Life about the neurologist and storyteller on his battles with drug addiction and homophobia. If any of those names jump out at you, just go on Google, and I’m sure you’ll find the movies.

Opening at the Metrograph for a one-week one as part of its Digital Membership (with a live screening with intro on Friday at 8pm Eastern) is a 2k restoration of Judy Irving, Chris Beaver and Ruth Landy’s 1982 film about the arrival of the nuclear age with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. TONIGHT at the Metrograph is a special Live Screening of James Gray’s 2008 film Two Lovers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow with an intro by Gray tonight at 8pm Eastern. Remember, it’s only $5 a month and $50 a year for a Metrograph digital membership, which is a fantastic deal!

Also opening in Virtual Cinemas (including Film at Lincoln Center’s and other regional arthouses) this week is Marcell Jankovic’s Hungarian 1981 animated film Son of the White Mare (1981), getting its first ever U.S. release in a new 4k restoration made from the original 35mm print. FilmLinc will also show Robert Kramer’s 1990 doc Route One/USA about a five-month road trip from the Canadian border to Key West.

A few of the other movies out this week include Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerina Borowcyk (Altered Innocense), Jamie Patterson’s Tracks (1091), Mona Zandi Haghighi’s African Violet (Venera Films), Behind the Line: Escape to Dunkirk (Trinity Creative) and Watch List (October Coast).

Oh, also Christopher Nolan’s Inception is opening in some U.S. theaters as a 10th anniversary rerelease? Man, I miss 10 years ago.

On Netflix this week, you get Trish Sie’s The Sleepover, a family adventure-comedy starring Sadie Stanley and Maxwell Simkins as Clancy and Kevin, who discover their mom (Malin Akerman) is actually a high-end thief in the witness protection program. When she and their dad (Ken Marino) are kidnapped to commit one last job with her ex-beau (Joe Manganiello), they have to team-up to rescue their parents. There’s also the Argentine crime-drama The Crimes That Bind, starring Cecilia Roth, coming to Netflix Thursday, and the Indian gangster film Class of ‘83 coming Friday. Amazon will premiere Richard Tanne’s teen romance Chemical Hearts, based on the book “Our Chemical Hearts” by Krystal Sutherland, which stars Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams.

Next week, more movies not in theaters, but also some movies in theaters! And others not in theaters, since I’m guessing the ones in New York will still be closed.

By the way, if you ever read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest