#unsure about brock and max but i hope they were there

[pricklypearcactus]

Had a remake/sequel (?) of the Pokémon Advanced Generation anime inspired by OR/AS visit me in a dream last night

[blastingxff]

Fate that Binds 16 (end)

This part: Everyone loves a deus ex machina. (FYI: This fic actually isn’t crack like please proceed with caution. And yes I am aware this tells you nothing about the part in question.)

first part // previous part  Series: Pokemon Characters: Jessie, James, Meowth, Pikachu, Ash, Brock, May, Max, Jessebelle Ships: hints of rocketshipping if you read it that way, mostly just friendshipping though Summary: It had been a throwaway wish, something made out of the frustration of the moment- it wasn’t actually supposed to happen. But the magic of a well haunted by a pokemon’s spirit ended up altering reality. Now, Jessie, James, and Meowth aren’t in Team Rocket. They don’t even know each other. And it’s created far darker a world for the TRio than Ash could have ever imagined, and now he and his friends want nothing more than to change things back to how they were. Genre: Friendship, hurt/comfort, so much angst, all the angst, drama, butchered canon, Words:  1,458 / part 16 out of 16 Trigger Warnings (this part): none other than stupid ending. Notes: This popped into my head and didn’t get out until I wrote it down. It’s 16 chapters, and entirely written already in about three days. So that will explain a helluvalot. Like the bus-sized plotholes. I just wanted to be mean to my favorite characters, geeze, is that so bad? XP Also can be read on Ao3.

Chapter 16

When Ash was able to focus again after a blinding flash of light spilled from the well, the first thing he noticed was that they were no longer in that outcropping. Second was that they were no longer on the edge of a cemetery. In fact, it seemed they were back to where they had started- in the woods near Cerulean.

Then he noticed that Jessie, James, and Meowth were gone. Jessie wasn’t lying there, dead. James wasn’t a broken, shaking human, and Meowth wasn’t frozen, watching the death of his family.

With hesitancy in his movements, his eyes went to Pikachu on his shoulder, and then to Brock and Max and May, “Guys…”

“What happened?” May verbalized the question they all held. With caution she followed the distant sound of city, moving through the last of the trees. Her words confirmed his thoughts, “We’re… we’re back in Cerulean.”

Their breaths were held as they began to walk towards the city where they had hoped to meet Misty over a week ago. There was a suspense in their breaths, not wanting to get excited to only find that things had been made worse again.

“You may have bested us last time!” It was haughty, familiar, and determined. Alive.

“But we’ve found you again and this time we came extra prepared!” Full of confidence, flare, and pride.

“It was a good try at hide-n-seek but youse twerps ain’t gonna get away with Pikachu today!” The human language was as impeccable as it had been before.

It was a scene Ash had witnessed dozens of times before. The three of them standing in a unified strength, typical Team Rocket uniforms on their bodies, Meowth healthy and whole.

James wore not a hint of that beaten down passiveness that came as a result of his fiancée.

Most importantly, Jessie was full of life. No trace of death on her preened skin.

“Don’t even try- Ah- James?” Jessie took a step back, “Did we do anything to make the twerp cry yet? I didn’t think we did… maybe later but….”

“Um, I don’t think so- unless we’ve started to scare them even more than before!”

“And things just got more awkward, twoip, what are you doin? Ya hit your head or something?”

Before they could react, Ash had his arms around both of their waists, clinging onto them tight. Pikachu seemed less enthused than his trainer- staying behind near their travel companions- but still relieved enough to see Meowth back to normal.

“We’re just glad to see you, that’s all,” Brock offered, though he was well aware the words would do little to explain the situation, only creating new questions.

“We were really worried,” Max aided the confusion with a smile, also knowing very well what he was doing. Or, not doing.

Jessie, James, and Meowth all exchanged a look, Jessie and James’ arms up and away from Ash’s body, both quite unsure of the proper response to this situation, “I feel we’re missing something,” Jessie’s words came slow towards his companions who could only nod in agreement.

“You’re alive, James isn’t married, and Meowth is well… Meowth,” May was breathing easier than she had in awhile, fighting the urge herself to latch onto the two of them. She was able to catch James’ eyes. They were so bright. So alive. Confused as heck, but sparkling.

The explanation offered to the Trio before them, reluctantly released by the boy they had attempted theft from too many times to be an accident, seemed to ring a bell in their minds.

“Jessie,” James began, “those nightmares we all had this past week… the weird ones?”

“Sound an awful lot like dis.”

“So does that mean it wasn’t the 3am pizza?”

“No, Jess, I think part of it still was. And the issue with that wasn’t the pizza at 3am; it was the fact that it was abandoned pizza at 3am that you found.”

“Still tasted good,” she shrugged, failing to see the argument, “Beggars can’t be choosers and all.”

“I mean, we still have standards, Jess.”

“Give it time.”

A twerpish laugh caught their attention, pulling them from their inner-group discussion to the boy in front of them. The twerp had yet to dry his eyes completely, still just way too excited to see any of them, “I’m so glad you’re back….” He was saying, his words breaking, “I was so… scared I’d- I’d-” his eyes went to Jessie, and she could feel something strange inside her gut. He was trying to hold himself together. She was stuck with what to do. A side-glance told her James and Meowth had little idea either as they seemed to be merely watching the display.

The twerp wasn’t done with his attempt at speech, “Jessie, I- when you- when you were- I really thought I’d- it was my fault you- you were-”

The sentence couldn’t be finished. For Brock and May and Max and Pikachu, it didn’t need to be. Brock’s hand went to his friend’s shoulder, hoping to provide forgiving comfort.

As for the trio of pokémon thieves with bruised hearts, the words and actions from the young boy triggered a rare moment they could only describe as being touched.

“Hey, twerp, don’t sweat it,” Jessie surprised herself with her attempts at easing the wild emotions of an adolescent, “It’s over and done with. Crying won’t change what happened and it’s not going to change anything from here on out, so c’mon, blast us off and get on with your little twerpish journey.”

Ash turned towards Pikachu, trying to open his mouth to issue a command but no voice came out. Instead, he returned to the three enemies and words spilled, fueled by stress-caused exhaustion, “I don’t… I don’t want to,” he was struggling, “I don’t want to.”

Jessie’s normal harsh glare softened further, “Go on your twerpish journey or blast us off?”

Ash could tell the look on his face answered for him.

“Then do you wanna call a truce for today?” James followed Jessie’s lead as per usual, his own face softening. Perhaps it was the touching, tender moment getting to the so-called cold-hearts of the criminals. But… they had never seen the boy this… well, this emotional. And over them? Well, care wasn’t something any of them were used to. In response to the truce, Ash allowed a nod.

“Fine by me,” Jessie’s shrug was an attempt at disguising how much the twerp’s emotions were actually getting to her, “James, Meowth, let’s go get pizza. Talking about it made me crave it.”

“Really Jess? You still want pizza?” James wasn’t really surprised despite the rise in pitch.

“Hey, don’t let the nightmares win, y’know? It’ll be fresh this time and likely not laced with whatever nightmare inducing things the last one was.”

“You mean it won’t be old pizza left outside.”

“If I wanted judgment I would have asked the Boss. Now, I have no problems using our salary to buy myself a pizza and I will have no trouble eating all of it. Do you want some pizza too or not?”

“Jessie,” she turned to the bigger of the twerps who spoke her name. And the more sensitive out of them, as she had come to know over the years. Not sensitive as in James sensitive, but hey, for his size- Brock could easily pull off being a giant asshole.

“Hm?”

“We’ll buy,” the words sparked a narrow of her brows. Even across universes, there were some things that called for suspicion, “We can even tell you what we saw. But… you may have trouble believing us.”

Her suspicion faded, she knew him too well- she doubted he’d do something sneaky or nasty, “Hey, free food is free food.”

And with that the small groups began to make their way to the smaller city, far from the city where the opposite world had thrown them into the perfect representation of Hell. There was pure relief from the younger four, as they watched the banter and ease of their usual enemies.

May noticed how easily James laughed, how tall he walked, how light he was with each step. Their lives were far from perfect here. And May would be lying if she said she was completely satisfied with how they lived. But they were together. And they had been together. And they fought but they built each other up and there was no better companion for any of them than each other.

It was right.

“I’d take this over getting that wish any day,” the words came from her own companion. The trainer had finally dried his tears, Pikachu on his shoulder once more. She tilted her head before nodding.

“Yeah. Me too.”

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND  October 5, 2018  -  Venom, The Star Is Born, The Hate U Give

Going to change things up again this week as we get into October, because I want to give special attention to a film called THE HATE U GIVE (20thCentury Fox), which is opening in select cities this weekend but will expand nationwide on October 19.

In this adaptation of Angie Thomas’ book (which I haven’t read), Amandla Stenberg plays Starr Carter, a teen girl living a dual life with her family in the primarily black Garden Heights community and when hanging out with her bratty white high school friends who are always trying to act “ghetto” around her. At home, Starr has loving parents, Maverick and Lisa (Russell Hornsby, Regina Hall), a younger brother Sekani and half-brother Seven. When Starr sees her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) shot by a white police officer, she’s unsure whether she should come forward and testify. Her police officer uncle Carlos (Common) doesn’t think so, especially since Khalil might have involved with Maverick’s old crime-boss King (Anthony Mackie), who wouldn’t want his business known to the police.

It seems like a fairly simple plot derived from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but there’s so much more to the movie than the ongoing battle between the police and the poorer communities they patrol.  In many ways, Starr is dealing with an identity crisis that I imagine   many African-Americans must face, having to be one way around white friends and co-workers and another way at home or with their family.

Besides the fact that this is Stenberg’s third movie this year where she had a hunky white boyfriend, she is so much better in this than her other films because she brings a playful energy to Starr that makes you want to follow her story.

Audrey Wells adapted Thomas’ book into a fantastic screenplay and director George Tillman Jr., whose filmography includes oddities like the biopic Notorious and Dwayne Johnson’s Faster, really directs the hell out of this movie

There are so many great scenes including one between Stenberg and Common where they have an honest talk about the different sides of what might seem like a cut-and-dry case of police racism.

The Hate U Give (which is derived from Tupac’s “T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E” motto that “the hate u give little infants effs everyone) is a movie that shares an important message without hitting you over the head with it ala Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman or some of the other films in the oeuvre release this year.

I guess my only misgiving about the film is that it goes on a little long, offering a few satisfying scenes that could have easily ended things there, but then continuing with a full-scale riot when tempers explode after the trial of Khalil’s murderer.

In my opinion, this is up there with some of the best movies I’ve seen this year, and only slightly behind A Star Is Born (review below) this week. While on the surface, it might not seem like a movie that would appeal to everyone, it works on so many levels, including as a straight-up coming-of-age film (and by now, you all should know how much I love those).

Rating: 8.5/10

The Hate U Give is kind of the Hollywood version of the #BlackLivesMatter story, but if you’re looking for something a little more grounded in reality, you should check out Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men (Neon), which is now playing in select cities. I got a chance to rewatch it this past week, and I was just as impressed as when I saw it at Sundance.  BlacKkKlansman star John David Washington is particularly impressive, again playing a police officer.

We now return you to the regularly-scheduled movie preview column after the jump…

This might surprise some but not others that this coming October is offering some of what might be the best films of the year, between this week’sA Star Is Born and The Hate U Give to next week’s First Man and Bad Times at the El Royale. We’re living in exciting times!  

VENOM (Sony)

In what looks to be the second to last “superhero” movie of the year, Sony is finally making a movie dedicated to Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis who later became a hero, hoping the fans will forget all about the awful version of Venom from Spider-Man 3.  A big selling point for the movie is that it returns Tom Hardy to the comic book world after playing Bane in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and he better hope fans like his Eddie Brock/Venom more than they did his strange-sounding villain.

Hardy has been laying low recently, his last film being Nolan’s Dunkirklast year in which the actor was barely recognizable as a WWII jet pilot. It was two years before that when he appeared in Inarritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant, the crime-drama Legendand George Miller’s long-awaited (and also multiple Oscar nominee) Mad Max: Fury Road.  In the years following The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy has also starred in a number of smaller films that haven’t gotten much traction, so it’s odd to see him returning to superheroes only six years after playing Bane.

Venomalso brings director Ruben Fleischer back into the Sony fold after directing the horror-comedy hit Zombieland and the comedy 30 Minutes or Less, although Fleischer has been focusing on television in the last five years since the Ryan Gosling crime-drama Gangster Squad. Neither of the latter two movies did as well as Zombieland, and it definitely feels like he has something to prove with Venom.

Unfortunately, people have already been vocally pessimistic about the movie ever since the first trailer didn’t bother to actually show Venom, and things got even more questionable after seeing Venom in a rather awkward longer trailer.  Much of the movie’s success is going to depend on whether reviews totally trash the movie or whether some critics actually like what Fleischer and Hardy are doing. So far, the RottenTomatoes reviews are at 28% Fresh, pointing more to the former, but one wonders if curious fans will still give the movie a chance.

Some have suggested Venom could open with over $60 million but I’m going a bit lower with around $55 to 57 million and $130 million or so total domestic. What’s interesting is that the opening range for the movie puts Venom into consideration to become the top October opening over Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, which opened with $55 million a few years ago. Regardless of whether it sets a new October opening record or not, I expect a fairly large drop after its opening weekend just because the fans will rush out to see it and then move onto other things.  Expect this to end up around $125 million domestic, which is not great, probably not enough for a sequel unless the movie surprises internationally.

Mini-Review: I’ve never been a huge fan of Venom as a comic book character. He always seemed a little one-dimensional to me, even as other writers/artists tried to flesh him and his host Eddie Brock out. (So far, Donny Cates’ take on Venom is well worth reading.)

I’m going to assume you know something about the character, his history as a Spider-Man costume-turned-villain and then how he became a hero. It’s obvious Tom Hardy and director Reuben Fleischer were making a movie for fans of the character who were disappointed with his handling by Sam Raimi in Spider-Man 3, and for the most part, it’s fairly faithful other than any references to Spider-Man.  In fact, the whole story has  been moved to San Francisco, as to avoid any other Spider-Man comparisons.

In this case, the symbiote comes down to earth in a space shuttle made by the Life Corporation run by an Elon Musk-type CEO named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), and Drake does experiments on the homeless to try to make them hosts for the alien creatures. Tom Hardy plays investigative reporter Eddie Brock, a big-time loser who loses his lawyer girlfriend (Michelle Williams) when he snoops into a case against Drake. While investigating at the Life Corporation, one of the symbiotes takes to Brock, and you can probably guess what happens.

Although this is a straight-up origin story in the simplest terms, some things just don’t work and there are definitely issues, the first being the often silly screenplay that is constantly on the border of veering into campy Nicolas Cage territory. Much of that is due to Hardy, who plays off the silliness of the schizophrenic nature of the character,

On paper, Venom could have easily been a terrifying R-rated horror film with lots of gore, but trying to keep it at PG-13 means that Fleischer makes it more of an action-comedy, and there is enough decent action scenes and quirky humor to keep things entertaining.

Probably one of the things that makes or breaks any comic book movie is the CG visual FX and Fleischer’s hefty team of animators does a decent job making Venom watchable with long black tendrils that reminded me of the video game Prototype (one of my first Xbox games). Things do get a little messy when a counter-symbiote is introduced named “Riot” is introduce and the end battle has some of the same problems as the Ed Norton The Incredible Hulk in that it just doesn’t deliver.

Even so, if you ARE a fan of the comic character, you should be pleased with this incarnation just as those unfamiliar with the character from the comics will probably find the movie and Hardy’s performance to be off-putting. The film never deteriorates to the point of being a Catwoman or Fantastic Fourlevel trash fire, though. Despite some tonal issues, it’s often fun and entertaining, especially the action scenes, and if nothing else, there’s an end credits scene that will make people (esp. Venom fans) hope this movie does well enough to warrant a sequel. Rating: 6.5/10

Venom is going to have a lot of strong competition for older moviegoers and women of all ages with...

A STAR IS BORN (Warner Bros.)

This wasn’t even remotely one of my more anticipated movies of the year until it started getting rave reviews out of the early September festivals, but I’m sure it would have gotten a lot of attention for being Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, even if it seems like a shoe-in to win lots of awards over the next few months.

Obviously, this is a remake of a movie that dates back to the 1937 movie starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor, which was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning for its story (as opposed to its screenplay). It was remade in 1954 with Judy Garland, and that was nominated for six Oscars and then again in 1974 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Krisstoferson, and that also only won one Oscar out of four nominations. Can Bradley Cooper’s version possibly break the “jinx” and make a movie that wins more than one Oscar? I think so.

Cooper has mostly been taking time off of acting to direct A Star Is Born, merely providing the voice of Rocket in last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and this year’s Avengers: Infinity War. He kind of hit a bit of a downturn in the years following his enormous hit American Sniper for Clint Eastwood, which grossed $350 million and got Cooper his third and fourth Oscar nominations. (Cooper has already been earmarked for a number of Oscar nominations for A Star is Born, for acting, directing and possibly even for writing some of the film’s songs.) Neither of Cooper’s 2015 movies with Jennifer Lawrence (Serena and Joy) did as well as their first two movies together with David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Cooper’s movies with Cameron Crowe (Aloha) and his cooking movie Burnt also didn’t do very well. Even so, Cooper had already been elevated to the A-list as an actor

The real ringer for Cooper’s debut is casting Lady Gaga in the role of Ally, the lounge singer who Cooper’s Jackson Maine discovers and falls for, because Lady Gaga has such an enormous diehard fanbase that even the younger girls might not be discouraged by the film’s soft-R rating. (Honestly, I still have to question the MPAA who gives this an R and Venom a PG-13 when there was WAY more swearing in that one.) Anyway, Lady Gaga is pegged to be nominated for an Oscar for her performance and probably one of her songs, too,

Another one of the films ringers is comedian Dave Chapelle, who basically just appears in one section of the movie but Warner Bros. wisely has cut a second trailer featuring him to play in movies like Night School in hopes of appealing to some of the African-American audiences that will see this movie as very white bread. More importantly, it stars Sam Elliot as Jackson’s older brother who has many great scenes with Cooper and is likely to be nominated for his first Oscar for it. (He should have been nominated for last year’s The Hero if you ask me.)

There are many easy comparisons for A Star is Born from Eminem’s 8 Mile ($51.2 million opening, $116m total) and the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line ($22.3m opening, $119m total). There’s certainly the hype that came with 8 Mile going into opening weekend and Cooper certainly has enough box office pull, but the fact that this is a remake might already make some older audiences wary. At the same time, Gaga and Cooper’s modern take on the age-old story is likely to appeal to younger audiences, as will the music that runs a wide gamut of country rockers and ballads, including a couple that will likely be nominated for Oscars.

The good news is that the movie has been receiving rave reviews since it premiered at Venice and then played Toronto shortly afterwards.

This is the thing. I think A Star Is Born is going to do very well this weekend, probably more than $40 million, but I think it’s really going to kill in the weeks to come as word-of-mouth and repeat viewings pushes the movie up over the $150 million mark. If the movie plays as well as I think it does, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see it approaching $200 million once it re-expands to take advantage of inevitable awards.

Mini-Review: It’s been more than a minute since I saw the Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson A Star Is Born, so I’m not too adverse to a fourth remake, as much as I was concerned about a movie featuring an actor I’m so-so on and a pop singer whose work I never really cared for. Imagine my surprise when I found myself enjoying the film almost immediately as we see Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine performing on stage with the very loud live music coming from the Dolby sound system where I saw the movie.

Maine is an alcoholic so after the show he goes looking for a bar, winding up at a drag night of one local watering hole where it just so happens that Lady Gaga’s Ally is performing “La Vie en Rose” (maybe a nod to another Oscar-winning actress?). He’s immediately enthralled and goes backstage to meet her, and the two immediately hit it off, hanging out and learning more about each other. Ally immediately starts enjoying the perks of Jackson’s fame as he flies her to one of his concerts and pulls her up on stage to perform the song “Shallow.”

Things progress from there as Ally becomes famous from a video of her performance with Jackson. After one show, Ally is approached by a manager-type who wants to make her an even bigger star, and he proceeds to do what happens too many times in the music industry where he tries to transform her into some pop diva that’s

I really enjoyed seeing the romance and relationship between the two leads evolve, because Cooper’s Jackson Maine is quite a smooth-talker, even if he’s slurring most of his words. Gaga is also impressive, likely bringing some of her own struggles in the music business to the role. On top of that, the supporting cast, including Sam Elliot as Jack’s older brother and Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s Dad brought a lot to the mix as Cooper ably balances the film’s tonal shifts from heavy drama to lighter moments.

Things do get a little bit predictable during the second act as Ally’s star begins to rise while Jackson’s starts to crash and burn, and he’s unable to accept how she’s becoming more successful than him, as his career begins to stagnate. He stops drinking, then starts drinking again and things just get worse and worse, as he seems to be hindering her career. The film’s last act is a stunner as Jack tries to get his alcoholism in check and Ally’s star continues to rise, making it obvious something’s eventually going to give.

A Star Is Born is an impressive debut from Cooper, not only for his direction but also how he elevates himself as an actor to keep up with his perfectly cast co-star. That’s not even considering that he co-wrote many of the film’s gorgeous songs. I enjoyed this film far more than I thought I would, and I know that I won’t be the only person seeing it multiple times.

Rating: 9/10

Venom shouldn’t have a problem taking the top spot although we’ll have to see whether negative reviews manage to keep the fans away. Either way, it will beat A Star is Born on Thursday/Friday but then the latter will pick up steam, bearing in mind that Monday is Columbus Day so there’s no school and government offices are closed, which could help some of the returning movies, as well.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Venom  (Sony) - $55.6 million N/A 2. A Star is Born  (Warner Bros.) - $42.5 million N/A 3. Night School  (Universal) - $15 million -46% 4.Smallfoot  (Warner Bros.) - $14.5 million -37% 5. The House with a Clock in its Walls  (Universal) - $7.3 million -40% 6. A Simple Favor (Lionsgate) – $4 million -38% 7. The Nun  (New Line) - $3 million -54% 8. Crazy Rich Asians  (New Line) - $2.7 million -35% 9. Hell Fest  (CBS Films/Lionsgate) - $2.2 million -57% 10. The Predator (Fox) – $1.7 million -57%

LIMITED RELEASES

Other than The Hate U Give, this weekend is kind of a mixed bag for limited releases, since I haven’t watched as many of these as I probably should.

Almost a year after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s LOVING PABLO (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) starring Javier Bardem as the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar as it follows his rise to power while in a love affair with Colombian journalist Virgina Vallejo, played by Penelope Cruz. The film is based on Vallejo’s book, and it’s opening at around 15 theaters across the country.

Filmmaker Peter Bogdonavich pays tribute to the great silent film Buster Keaton with Buster Restored (Cohen Media Group), which combines footage from Keaton’s silent comedies with interviews by those he’s inspired including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino and Johnny Knoxville. It opens at the Quad Cinemaon Friday along with a small Buster Keaton retrospective and then opens at the Landmark Nuarton Oct. 19

Matt Tyrnauer follows his recent doc Scotty and the Secret of Hollywood with Studio 54, opening at the IFC Center Friday. It looks at the New York nightclub that was the place to be seen between 1977 and 1980 but was exceedingly hard to get into as its popularity and notoriety rose. Tyrnauer was given incredible access to the man-behind-the-club Ian Schrager, who tells the story of Studio 54 for the first time. After a number of showings at IFC Center with Tyrnauer in attendance, Studio 54 will then open at the Landmark Nuart in L.A. on Oct. 12.

Opening at the Film Forum in New York is Joseph Dorman and Toby Perl Freilich’s Moynihan (First Run Features), a portrait of former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who tried to contend with poverty and racism in the greatest city in the world. (The latter bit is my own personal opinion. I haven’t seen the movie.)

Not to overshadowed by Bradley Cooper, Cuba Gooding Jr. stars and makes his directorial debut in Bayou Caviar (Gravitas Ventures), which stars Richard Dreyfuss as a Russian gangster who hires Gooding’s former boxer to take down an associate’s son-in-law with a scandalous tape. It also stars Famke Janssen, Katherine McPhee, Ken Lerner and Lia Marie Johnson.

Bella Thorne and Jessie Usher star in Jeremy Ungar’s Ride (RLJE Films) with the latter playing James, a struggling actor who drives people around L.A. for a ride-sharing service. The job gets slightly better when he hits it off with the beautiful Jessica, but the two of them are then taken on a crazy joy ride by another fare.

Following its run on DirecTV, Trevor White’s A Crooked Somebody (Vertical/DirecTV) stars Rich Sommer as a medium who goes against the advice of his minister father (Ed Harris) trying to call forth the dead, only to be idnapped by someone who desperately wants to make contact with the dead.

Terence Stamp and Ann Demetriou stars in David LG Hughes’ Viking Destiny (Saban Films/Lionsgate), the latter playing a Viking princess who is forced to flee her kingdom after her king father (presumably Stamp) is murdered, so she travels the world building an army to get revenge. In case you’re wondering what Game of Thrones has inspired…. wonder no more!

Michael Ironside stars in Michael Peterson’s horror film Knuckleball (Freestyle Digital Media) about a 12-year-old who finds himself alone on an isolated farm after his grandfather dies. (I assume Ironside plays the latter.)

I also don’t know a ton about Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Wobble Place (Breaking Glass Pictures), which has an exclusive run at Metrograph starting Friday with the filmmaker in attendance for a few screenings. Best I can do to describe this is to share the odd trailer…

This week’s Yash Raj Films offering is Abhiraj K. Minawala’s Loveyatri, a love story set during the 9-day festival of Navrati, starring Aayush Sharma and Warina Hussain, a romance which almost comes to an end as she travels back to the UK leaving him in India.

Filmmakers Jukka Vidgren & Juuso Laatio’s Scandinavian cult-comedy Heavy Trip (Doppelgänger Releasing/Bloody Disgusting) will open in select theaters Friday before going to VOD on Oct. 12. It stars Johannes Holopainen as a guy stuck in a small Finnish village who is also the lead singer of metal band Impaled Rektum, a band who hasn’t played a single gig in 12 years until they’re booked to play a Norwegian festival.

And speaking of which, Bloody Disgusting’s Retro Nightmares continues with a double feature of Amityville: The Evil Escapes & Amityville: It’s About Time on Thursday Oct. 4 in select cities.

Lastly,  Anthony Nardolillo’s Shine (Forgiven Films/GVN Releasing), which won the Best Feature award at the 2017 Urbanworld Film Festival, comes out Friday, starring salsa dancersJorge Burgos and Gilbert Saldivar as two brothers who find themselves on opposite sides of the gentrification hitting East Harlem.

STREAMING

The only major new film streaming on Netflix is Tamara Jenkins’ new film PRIVATE LIFE, which premiered at Sundance and just played the New York Film Festival. It stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti as a married couple who have been trying to have a baby and start looking at alternative methods after fertility treatments aren’t working. Jenkins is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 2007’s The Savages, starring Laura Linney and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. (The movie also opens at the IFC Center in New York and at a theater in L.A.)

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I’m pretty excited about my local theater’s latest series, an Albert Brooks retrospective that runs between Friday and Tuesday and including some of his classics like Modern Romance, Lost in America, Mother, Defending Your Life,Real Life and a program of SNL shorts.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Alain Resnais’ 1974 film Stavisky, featuring music by Stephen Sondheim, gets a restoration, which opens here on Wednesday.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Beyond Fest 2018 continues with a double feature of Flash Gordon and the West Coast premiere of the doc Life After Flash. Thursday sees a double feature of The Monster Squad and the new documentary about the movie called Wolfman’s Got Nards. Beyond Fest will then wrap on Saturday with a TRIPLE feature of Black Christmas and Halloween from 1978, as well as the brand-new Halloween weeks before its nationwide release.

AERO  (LA):

American Cinemateque’s other L.A. theater continues its own Beyond Fest Tribute to Cronenberg with a double feature of the director’s Crash and Spider on Thursday night. It also begins the series The Life of Reilly, as in John C. Reilly, with a double feature of Chicago and Step Brothers on Friday, and then a free screening of Reilly’s new film The Sisters Brothers on Saturday. Saturday also sees a screening of PT Anderson’s Magnolia with Reilly in person and a screening of A Grin Without a Hat (1977) to celebrate Icarus Films’ 40th anniversary.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

To help celebrate last week’s retrospective recipient Peter Bogdonavich’s new doc The Great Buster: A Celebration (see above), the West Village theater will also show a trio of Buster Keaton shorts, The General and other Keaton classics.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Along with a program of Jean Vigo shorts, the Hollywood theater will show the new 4k restoration of the director’s L’Atalante that screened at Film Forum last week.

MOMA (NYC):

The Unknown Jerry: Home Movies and More from the Jerry Lewis Collection at the Library of Congresscontinues with  Come Back Little Shiksa (1962) and The Re-Inforcer (1951) on Friday, Fairfax Avenue (1951), and a couple features on Gar-Ron Productions on Saturday and The Bellboy (1960) on Sunday, as it continues into next week. The month-long Modern  Matinees: Vincent Price will show Edward Scissorhands on Friday afternoon.