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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND August 9, 2019 - ONE CHILD NATION, VISION PORTRAITS, PEANUT BUTTER FALCON and lots more!

For this week’s column, I’m going to put a little more focus on two excellent documentaries out this week, even though there’s a few narratives worth checking out, as well..

The first doc I want to talk about is Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s ONE CHILD NATION (Amazon Studios), an amazing look at the edict by the Chinese government in the ‘80s -- one that ran right up until fairly recently -- which pushed for families to only have one child in order to help the country’s struggling economy. The idea is that the less children to feed, the further resources can be spread. This “suggestion” was one that became a huge problem for families as young women were being kidnapped and sterilized after having one child and some families had to give up their second child for adoption, often against their own desires... though they were also given much needed money and food. It’s an edict that becomes even more nefarious when you consider that women are having important personal decisions about having children being made for them by the government. (Sound familiar?) The running storyline through the movie involves a teen girl, whose twin was taken away for adoption when she was very young, as the filmmakers help her reconnect with her now-teen twin in America. Her story is so moving that if the two of them were actually reunited in the film, I probably would have broken down and had one of the ugliest cries I’ve ever had during a movie. As it it, it’s already a heartbreaking and emotional film with the situation so well portrayed by the two filmmakers, and it’s a movie I connected to from my osmosis having lived in Chinatown for 26 years.

I imagine it will be on Amazon relatively soon, but if you’re a fan of great documentary filmmaking, you might want to seek this out in New York (at the Film Forum), Boston, L.A. and other cities this weekend.

I next want to talk about Rodney Evans’ VISION PORTRAITS (Stimulus Pictures), which opens exclusively at the Metrograph following its premiere at SXSW earlier this year.

Not many people know this but a little over a year ago, I was dealing with my own vision problems where I had a scratched retina from shingles, but I was also having trouble with deteriorating vision in both eyes. I’m actually surprised that more of my editors didn’t ask me about why most of the pieces I submitted were zoomed in 175-250% as my eyesight got worse, but it was getting to the point where I wouldn’t be able to read any black writing on white background and had trouble reading some comics when letterers got a bit too creative with the word balloons. It got pretty serious until last year when an opthomologist suggested I get cataract surgery.

Filmmaker Rodney Evans has been dealing with his eyesight problems for years, but they had been getting worse as his filmmaking career progress. In a moment of introspection, he decided to interview other artists with vision impairment to see how they deal with it while making their art. These include dancer/choreographer Kayla Hamilton, writer Ryan Knighton and photograph John Dugdale, as the film also follows Evans own path in order to get a procedure to help alleviate his blindness.

The film is fascinating, especially the idea of “passing” as sighted, something I had to deal with during my own declining eyesight. (BTW, I’m fine now as I had that cataract surgery and I now wear reading glasses for most computer/phone activities.)

Evans will be at the Metrograph all weekend doing QnAs for his film with a number of special guests (including Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik on Sunday!) so if you’re interested in knowing more about how those with vision problems can still be creative artists, this is worth checking out. It’s not a sexy movie, but it’s an important one. It will open in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal on August 23.

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I also want to mention that Garret Price’s doc Love, Antosha will open in New York at the Quad Cinema on Friday, and if you were ever a fan of actor Anton Yelchin, then this amazing doc with interviews with so many of the filmmakers and other actors he’s worked with is heartbreaking but essential. It’s an amazing list that even includes Nicolas Cage reading letters from Anton to his mother – brilliantly, no less -- but it’s also wonderful to hear such wonderful things about Yelchin from those who worked with him and called him friend.

Also, if you haven’t had a chance to see Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, now’s a good time to learn more about this amazing author who passed away earlier this week. It’s still playing in select cities but hopefully Magnolia Pictures will be able to get it out to more theaters with her passing.

There’s a LOT of wide releases this week, and it’s a pretty mixed bag. I’ve seen three of the movies, and one of the ones I liked I can say that I liked it – the other one is under embargo. I guess it might be more obvious which is which when my reviews turn up at The Beat later this week.

I will say that I enjoyed Tom Shadyac’s BRIAN BANKS (Bleecker Street), starring Aldis Hodges and Greg Kinnear, quite a bit, since I have friends in prison who have dealt with the broken justice system where it’s easier to make a plea deal and prevent many hours in court with lawyer hours billed. Banks was a Long Beach, California high school football star who was accused of rape. Although the allegations were false, he takes a deal and gets thrown in jail for eleven years, destroying his dreams of being in the NFL. Out on probation, Banks tries to get his football career going again but discovers that the limitations of his probation and a GPS ankle bracelet makes it impossible, as well as impossible to get a job. He turns to a lawyer with a group who works on getting those falsely accused exonerated and begins an uphill battle against the California justice system. The movie is quite meaningful and inspirational to watch Banks’ story being told with Hodges giving an excellent performance as the football player. I never knew about Banks, so I was fascinated by the film, although I’m sure there will be cynical people out there who feel that this is a cooking cutter legal film that doesn’t have the dramatic fireworks of other such films. I actually liked that Shadyac, who had nearly retired from the business after making low-brow comedies like Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, would return to tell something that’s more meaningful and important. I’m just not sure if anyone will want to pay to see this in theaters, so its wide release is fairly risky, but it’s a worthwhile venture for sure.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to seeing Paramount’s DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD, just ‘cause I’ve never watched the Nickelodeon cartoon, although it certainly looks cute, and I always love seeing Michael Peña (Ant-Man) and Isabela Moner was amazing in last year’s Instant Family. I guess I’ll see if I can get to this eventually, but it’s not a priority for me.

While I can’t say much about the Guillermo del Toro-produced André Øvredal-directed SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (CBS Films/Lionsgate) due to a review embargo, it’s based on the (apparently controversial) young adult horror novel series of the ‘80s, featuring a cast of younger newcomers like Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush and Austin Zajur. I guess I can say that fans of old school horror films will probably like the use of practical FX in creating the creatures of urban legend, giving the movie a nostalgia factor we don’t frequently see in modern horror films.

I’ll have an interview with Øvredal later in the week, as well as a review, both over at The Beat.

I never read the Vertigo Comics series THE KITCHEN (New Line) when it was first published in 2014, but it offers an interesting premise of women taking over the Irish mob in 1978 Hell’s Kitchen, New York with three fantastic actors in Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss. You’ll have to wait for my review later today to see if it works or not, but you can read my interview with filmmaker Andrea Berloff right here.

I also haven’t read the novel THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, which has been adapted by Fox starring Amanda Seyfried, Milo Ventimiglia with Kevin Costner voicing a dog, but I haven’t seen any of the dog movies this year, so this one won’t be the exception.

You can read my thoughts on the box office of the five movies above over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Roadside Attractions/Armory Films/Endevor Content) was a nice surprise that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival. The idea of Shia Labeouf and Dakota Johnson (from the “50 Shades” movies) on a road trip with a young man with Downs’ Sydrome (breakout star Zack Gottsagen) sounds like it could be absolutely horrifying, so imagine my surprise when this turned out to be fairly warm and wonderful and actually quite funny. A lot of that comes from Gottsagen who is quite funny, and the movie allows you to laugh with him rather than at him, which is sometimes the case with movies involving mental disabilities. It’s a very enjoyable film that might have some appeal to wrestling fans – the title of the movie is Zack’s wrestling name and his goal is to get to a wrestling school run by Thomas Hayden Church. But there are some fun wrestling cameos in the movie as well. Maybe it’s no surprise that it actually won the Audience Award at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, as well.

It’s opening in New York, L.A. and a couple other cities like Austin, Dallas and others on Friday. For transparency, my friend Susan McPhail has a small role in the movie…but I liked the movie anyway :)

I was definitely intrigued by Bart Freundlich’s AFTER THE WEDDING (Sony Pictures Classics), which premiered at Sundance and starred Michelle Williams and Freundlich’s wife Julianne Moore in a gender-twist on the Susanne Bier movie of the same name from 2006, which starred Mads Mikkelsen, who was excellent in the movie. Williams and Moore are also very good in this movie which has Williams as a woman working with underprivileged orphans in India who travels to New York to meet with the CEO of a business looking to invest money in the program. Once there, she’s invited to a wedding, only to learn that the father of the groom is a former boyfriend (played by Billy Crudup). I’m not sure how much more I can say about the developments that occur, because they might be somewhat surprising if you haven’t seen the original movie but it leads to some high drama with Freundlich continuing his streak from the underrated Wolves a few years back. This opens in New York and L.A. this Friday.

Casey Affleck’s third movie as a director, LIGHT OF MY LIFE, might have gotten a festival release or a better theatrical release than the one normally given by Saban Films, but the allegations against him and the whole #MeToo movement has probably made it harder to sell the movie, especially with the filmmaker/star not doing interviews.

Tom Donahue’s doc THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING (Good Deed Entertainment),o opening at the IFC Center and in L.A., features some of the prominent female voices in Hollywood talking about the underrepresentation (and underpayment) of women in the movie industry. The film includes an amazing roster includes Geena Davis, also one of the film’s exec. producers, Marisa Tomei, Jessica Chastain, Meryl Streep, Rashida Jones and many, many more, and hearing what they have to say about their experiences in the industry is very enlightening and important.

Hari Sama’s THIS IS NOT BERLIN (Samuel Goldwyn), opening in New York at the IFC Center this Friday and in L.A. on August 23 is an intriguing coming of age film set in 1986 Mexico City, which harks back to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma last year. It involves a seventeen-year old named Carlos (played by Xabiani Ponce de Léon) who doesn’t fit in but starts finding himself when he gets involved in the post-punk scene at a nightclub, although his best friend Gera (José Antonio Toledano) has trouble adjusting, causing fiction in the friendship.

In many ways, this remined more of Cuaron’s earlier film Y Tu Mama Tambien, although it’s a little more erratic in terms of tone, as well as being somewhat predictable about where things might go wrong. What’s especially interesting is the exploration of sexuality by the two friends in the movie and how that is affected as they go further down a rabbit hole of drugs and depravity. The movie also stars Roma’s Marina de Tavira as Carlos’ mother, and while it probably won’t be for everyone, Sama offers a great new voice on the international filmmaking circuit.

Martin Freeman and Morena Baccarin (Deadpool) star in Jason Winer’s rom-com ODE TO JOY (IFC Films), which opens in select cities and On Demand this Friday. In it, Freeman plays a man suffering from narcolepsy who tries to overcome it when he falls in love. Also starring Melissa Rauch, Jake Lacy, Jane Curtin and more.

Lastly, Robi Michael’s psychological thriller Every Time I Die (Gravitas Ventures) stars Drew Fonteiro as a man who is murdered at a lake sending his consciousness travelling through the bodies of friends to warn them of the killer. Very high concept indeed...

STREAMING AND CABLE

As far as Netflix this week, I am looking forward to seeing the new crime and martial arts series WU ASSASSINS, starring Iko Uwais from The Raid and more recently, Stuber, which will debut on Thursday. There’s a lot of great martial arts talent in the movie including Mark Dacascos as well as Summer Glau from Firefly, so this should be a fun show. I’m even MORE excited for return of the series GLOW for its third season this Friday with Geena Davis being added to the mix. I love this show, maybe because I remember watching GLOW so fondly in the ‘80s.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

As part of the ongoing Juraj Herz, retrospective of the Czech genre filmmaker, the Metrograph is premiering a new 4k restoration of his 1969 black and film The Cremator starting Friday, although the series will end on Thursday. This week, the Metrograph is also starting a new month-long series called “Godard/Karina Late Nights,” showing four of the collaborations between the French New Wave master and his muse Anna Karina. This Friday and Saturday, the series will screen the 1964 classic Band of Outsiders. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Seijun Suzuki’s 1966 Yakuza crime-thriller Tokyo Drifterand the weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Joe Johnston’s 1989 Disney family comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, starring Rick Moranis. Also this Thursday is the latest installment of The Academy at Metrograph with the Oscar-nominated Mexican film Like Water from Chocolate (1992) with director Alfonso Arau in person. There are still some seats available but it might be sold out by the time you read this.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Tarantino’s rep theater continues to mostly be booked up with mostly sold out shows of his ninth film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, although the Weds matinee is the Rock Hudson/Doris Day classic Pillow Talk (1959)and the weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Norman Tokar’s Sammy, the Way Out Seal from 1963. Saturday morning is also the latest installment of the Bev’s “Cartoon Club.” Monday’s matinee is Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsidersfrom 1983.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The premiere downtown NY arthouse continues its impressive “Burt Lancaster” series this week with a lot of fantastic films including John Sturges’ Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Robert Aldrich’s Ulzanna’s Raid (1972) on Thursday, Saturday is also John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), then on Sunday, Run Silent Run Deep (1958), plus the Forum will also screen the 1968 film The Swimmer, Elmer Gantry (1960) and MUCH more! In other words, this series is a bonanza of Lancaster riches, and next week begins another great repertory series!

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

This weekend’s series is “Rutger Hauer Remembered” with a screening of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) on Thursday, a 35mm double feature of Ladyhawke and Flesh + Blood (both from 1985) on Friday, a TRIPLE feature of The Hitchhiker (1986), Nighthawks (1981) and the more recent Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) on Saturday, and then The Blood of Heroes and Blind Fury on Sunday.

AERO (LA):

The AERO gets in on the retrospective bandwagon of one of Iran’s most respected filmmakers with “A Taste of Kiarostami,” beginning on Thursday with the late filmmaker’s recent films Like Someone in Love (2012) and 24 Frames (2017), Friday’s double feature is Taste of Cherry (1997) and Ten (2002) and then Saturday is Close-Up (1990) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) – most of these include a short, as well. The series concludes on Sunday with a triple feature of Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy: Where is My Friend’s House? (1987), And Life Goes On (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). I’ll be perfectly honest that my knowledge of Kiarostami is not what it should be, but hopefully those in L.A. will check out some of these movies even if they don’t get the amazing Godfrey Cheshire hosting them.

Wednesday’s installment of the “Greg Proops Film Club” is a screening of Babette’s Feast and the AERO is getting in on the midnight movie craze on Friday night by showing David Lynch’s 1977 Eraserhead in conjunction with “Cinematic Void.”

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad begins an impressive new series called “Beach Reads: From Sun to Screen” with a number of classic movie adaptations of some classic novels, including Airport (1970), The Deep (1977), Arthur Hailey’s Hotel (1967), Mark Robson’s Valley of the Dolls (1967) – just cited in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood – John Sturges’ Ice Station Zebra (1968) and many more classics. In conjunction with the New York premiere of the doc Love, Antosha, the Quad will also be showing two of Anton Yelchin’s latter-day films, that doc’s exec. producer Drake Doremus’ Like Crazy(2011) and Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015), both which are excellent and worth seeing. (And another major oops from last week is that I forgot to mention the Joan the Maid 4k Restorations showing at the Quad, so hopefully they’ll continue through the weekend.)

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Caroline’s pick of Louis Malle’s 1958 thriller Elevator to the Gallows, showing Friday through Sunday at 11AM. Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019, chosen by Shelby, is Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) starring Eewen Bremner, and Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring from 2002. Also playing through the weekend is the IFC’s 60thanniversary 4k restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, starring Cary Grant, which will play most days in the early evening.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

BAM’s new series “Punks, Poets & Valley Girls: Women Filmmkers” begins on Wednesday with Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia (1983), which will be followed on Thursdsay by two more amazing music docs, The Decline of Western Civilization and The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years. The series also includes Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens (1982) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Bette Gordon’s Variety and lots more as it runs through August 20.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The “Summer Matinees: Fantastic Worlds” series continues this week with the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse… in 3D! playing Weds. through Sunday at noon. MOMI will also have a 30thAnniversary screening of Spike Lee’sDo the Right Thing on Friday night, plus “See It Big! 70mm” continues with screenings of Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma (also from last year) as well as one or two more screenings of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Michel Gondry’s swill get a FREE screening at Governors Island’s Parade Ground on Friday night starting at 7pm. I missed this last week (what else is new?) but FilmLinc’s “Another Country: Outsider Visions of America” continues with a cinematic look at the immigrant experience.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

This week’s rep stuff includes the 1967 film Personaon Weds. and Saturday, and the 1963 Jean-Luc Godard film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot, Michael Picoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang as himself.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This week’s midnight offering is a weird one… DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek (2001)!

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