The Revolutions per Minute Festival hosts 10 works by Somerville experimental filmmaker Saul Levine at The Brattle Theatre on Sunday.
Not sure what experimental films are? If you’ve ever been to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and seen trippy, surreal video installations, you’re on your way. Experimental or avant-garde film is usually deeply personal, often sociopolitical in context and reflective of the artist’s life in the moment.
Levine, born 1938, has been producing films for nearly 60 years; he was a professor in the Visual Arts Program at MassArt for 39 years.
Levine started his filmmaking career with “Salt of the Sea” (1965), featuring footage of his friends hopping from a boat to a buoy in the New Haven harbor. “I tried to make the jump with the camera,” Levine said, “and I fell into the water but held on to the camera.” The waterlogged footage, which Levine described as “abstract swirls of magenta and turquoise,” was turned into a four-minute short that ended with a clear shot of his friend perched upon the buoy.
If you watch Levine’s later works, such as his series “Driven (Boston After Dark)” (2002-present), in which Levine rides around in a car filming subjects and captures moments in time, or “Sun Drum Moon Note” (2018), which screens Sunday, you’ll notice shaky camera work. Part of that is Levine’s editing style, but adding to it are genetic neurological ticks – what Levine refers to as “tremors” – that he’s had since birth. As a result, Levine also speaks with a noticeable stammer.
Age and neurological affliction keeps Levine from getting behind the camera as much as he used to. Levine’s time at MassArt was also cut short, ending with his resignation in 2018. He said he felt “forced out” after school administrators accused him of harming students by showing his compiled film “Notes After a Long Silence” (1989), a collage that includes scenes of him having sex with his then partner. “It was ridiculous,” Levine said, as he’d screened “Notes” over several years without complaint and “the film was posted on the school’s website.” Levine gave passionate commentary on the situation in a video on Facebook, saying he felt “ambushed” by the school’s administration. The same year, fellow MassArt professor Nicholas Nixon, a Guggenheim fellow and photographer, came under scrutiny in a Boston Globe article for more severe, yet similar allegations of inappropriate academic behavior. The Globe mentioned Levine in conjunction with Nixon, who also resigned.
It’s amazing, given how Draconian the Iranian government has been about censorship and control over its own narrative, that the voices of filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi persist. Both have been arrested and spent time in jail because they make films critical of the oppressive regime. These films are usually shot and edited secretly and often bootlegged out of the country to gain distribution in the West. Panahi struck the first blow with the sublime and frightening “The Circle” (2000), which detailed the systemic imprisonment of women for morality violations that most people in a free state would consider little more than jaywalking. Rasoulof goes further with “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” crafting a domestic gender rift against the backdrop of the real-life death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 after being taken into custody for a hijab violation. The event galvanized the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and led to protests in the streets. In the home of Iman (Missagh Zareh), he and his wife Najmeh (Sohelia Golestani) and teenage daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) come at the headline event differently. Iman, who works for the state judicial department and reviews and signs execution orders, believes the theocracy’s line that Amin died of a stroke; his wife and daughters, like all those protesting, believe the death was the result of abuse and torture. Iman has a gun as part of his position, and as tension in the house rises, the firearm goes missing. Ultimately the action leaves the confines of the family’s apartment and the distrust threatens to turn violent. Just before the film played Cannes, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison with a flogging and fled the country, another reflection of a theocratic patriarchy holding authoritarian reins chokingly tight.
‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ (2024)
A perfect companion to RaMell Ross’ superb “Nickel Boys,” as both deal with a grotesquely unjust Black experience on the cusp of the civil rights movement. “Nickel Boys” is a microcosm of racial injustice, whereas “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” looks globally. The doc by Johan Grimonprez details the dubious events surrounding the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, inaugural leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo – just liberated from Belgium and quickly becoming a Cold War conflict because its rich uranium deposits were coveted by the United States and Soviet Union for use in nukes. It is astounding to see archival footage of the smooth and charismatic Malcom X and an animated Nikita Khrushchev making the same condemnations at the U.N. of the West for its colonialism and denial of rights to Black people. Insert into the mix Louis Armstrong as a Trojan horse cultural ambassador to the Congolese while Eisenhower, the CIA and Belgian operatives scheme against Lumumba in ways troublesome, embarrassing and downright heinous out of fear the nation (and its uranium) would fall into Soviet hands. Grimonprez, employing frenetic freestyle editing, homes in on socially active jazz greats of the time – among them Nina Simone, doing her amazing “Sinnerman,” Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach bringing the beat and emotional heat and Dizzy Gillespie – as well as X and Maya Angelou (she, Lincoln and Roach stormed the U.N. in the wake of Lumumba’s death) to fill the frame with sound and voice. The frequent shards of quotes he flashes onscreen are stunningly effective. Grimonprez has tapped into an incredible intersection of time, place and players that he turns into an immersive experience that entertains and informs unlike any Wikipedia page or history book.
‘The Room Next Door’ (2024)
Iconic Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (“Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) makes his first English-language film, and with the double-barrel casting of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore on paper it seems like a can’t-miss collaboration. While it definitely hits, it’s not the boom you’d expect from such a loaded lot. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through,” “Room Next Door” is a contemplation on mortality – something that seems to be on Almodóvar’s mind these days given this, “Parallel Mothers” (2021) and most personally, “Pain and Glory” (2018). Novelist Ingrid (Moore) and war correspondent Martha (Swinton sporting a neat crop top), Manhattanites but distant for years, reunite because Martha is terminally ill and wants Ingrid to spend the end days with her in a quaint VRBO upstate. The performers are all in, yet the characters somehow feel shallow and contrived and the dialogue too meted, as if were a stage play. It’s gorgeous and affecting, but ephemeral and wispy.
It was a strange year in cinema, a year where blockbuster success at the box office was rare (“Inside Out 2” was the top grab, followed by the overdone “Deadpool & Wolverine” superfrenemy romp) and outshone by adult-themed animation, non-English-language and documentary offerings. Also strong were films featuring women’s voices and indie creep-outs – a combination best embodied and exemplified by TJ Mollner’s “Strange Darling,” Anna Kendrick making her directorial debut with “Woman of the Hour” and the gonzo body-horror spectacle “The Substance.” None of which made mt top 10, but were squarely in the hunt.
A sardonically black political comedy that’s right out of left field, powered by witty takes on hot topics (Andrew Tate, Putin and Pornhub, to name a few) and a killer performance by Ilinca Manolache, without whom the movie could not be. Manolache plays Angela, a feisty Romanian woman looking to make it in the gig economy as a filmmaker and TikTok sensation. Her main hustle is as a production assistant for a company that makes safety videos, kind of – on many shoots, Angela coaches accident victims, often in wheelchairs, to talk about the safety measures they should have taken to have avoided injury despite the clear negligence of the employer to provide a safe workplace. They’re more CYAs than PSAs, and that’s the degree of biting humor imbued by writer-director Radu Jude (“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”)
2. “Flow”
The official Oscar nominee from Latavia, is a mesmerizing, dialogue-free animated adventure about a cat and all the other birds, dogs and capybara that out feline encounters. Themes of climate change—flash floods and tsunamis are the reason the cat and fellow animals find themselves adrift on a sailboat—and a peaceful world sans the presence of man and mankind’s destructive ways pervade Gints Zilbalodis’s gorgeously stylized of an Eden like end to the world. Visually “Flow” has all the beauty and poetry of a Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece and the way it navigates mature matters makes it multi-tiered and applicable for all members of the family regardless of age.
Not a claymation romp for the whole family – not even close. No, this very dark and very adult animated tale has twins (voiced by “Succession” and “Power of the Dog” stars Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee) separated after the death of their father and placed in foster homes on opposite coasts of Australia, as well as edgy, plot-driving incursions into swinging, fat feeding, pyromania and religious zealotry. Wickedly funny yet tenderly bittersweet, “Memoir of a Snail” has the dark, loving embrace of Tim Burton done with the edgy verve of Trey Parker and Matt Stone of “South Park.”
It takes a little while to buy into Timothée Chalamet as quirky troubadour and American icon Bob Dylan, but once he gets you on the hook, it’s clear that the uncannily deep performance is certain to be one of the year’s best. I was never all-in with all the Chalamet love after he burst onto the screen in Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” (2017) and received an Oscar nod for his part as young lover to an older partner. And yes, he shone as Hal in “The King” (2019), but in the “Dune” films he’s felt underweight as Paul Atreides, the man-boy turned messiah. With his turn as Bob, I’m done dithering – and did I mention he does all the singing of Dylan’s early ’60s catalog, nasal twang and all? It’s more than just a little impressive.
Departing from your typical cradle-to-grave biopic arc, writer-director James Mangold (“Heavy,” “Ford v Ferrari”) and co-writer Jay Cocks, working from Elijah Wald’s 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric!” home in on Dylan’s ascent to notoriety and his transition from folk to electric rock, which caused a sizable stir at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan reportedly had conversations with Mangold and offered some additional tidbits that got worked into the film. We begin with the young Bob visiting his idol Woodie Guthrie (Scoot McNairy, also onscreen as Amy Adams’ passive husband in “Nightbitch”) at a hospital where he’s battling Huntington’s disease and can’t talk. By his side is “If I had a Hammer” singer and Newport Fest organizer Pete Seeger (a nearly unrecognizable Edward Norton, knocking it out of the park as the solemn, mild-mannered folkie). Three legends, one small room.
The film flows like that: Dylan’s soulful sojourns cross paths with other era icons, sometimes collaborating and other times clashing. As the film has it, it’s Seeger among the crew trying to pull the plug on Dylan’s electric set late in the film. In between, much revolves around Dylan’s relationships with girlfriend Suze Rotolo, fictionalized as Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) to allow narrative flexibility and respect Rotolo’s memory and surviving family; and folk and feminist icon Joan Baez (played with vim and nuance by Monica Barbaro, whose stock is certain to rise in the wake of the film). It’s Baez who early on gives Dylan a big lift, bringing him on tour, and despite their romantic interludes has no qualms about calling him out for being a self-interested asshole.
Rock biopics are notoriously tricky. Without the artist or the artist’s estate behind the project, often the music is missing – see “Stoned” (2005, about Brian Jones) or “Stardust“ (2020, about David Bowie). This isn’t Dylan’s first treatment either, which would be Todd Haynes’ more abstract and cagey “I’m Not There” (2007), in which Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger are part of a six-actor rotation playing Dylan in different incarnations. Mangold’s take is more rooted, but both films are wise to seek the essence of Dylan and not attempt to provide answers into the slippery persona who, after becoming the only musician to win the Nobel Prize, skipped the ceremony and sent fellow rocker Patti Smith to perform a few Dylan works in his stead.
One of the finer strands in “A Complete Unknown” is the letters exchanged between Dylan and Johnny Cash (a brash Boyd Holbrook) and their meetups at Newport. Cash, whom Mangold framed with great success in “Walk the Line” (2005) with Joaquin Phoenix, is depicted as something of a Dylan agitator and muse who pushes him to push back on the folkies who want to keep Newport unplugged; his inclusion allows an uproarious scene one not-so-sober festival morn with Cash trying to park his Caddy by caroming and careening off the fenders and bumpers of other cars. The true gift of “A Complete Unknown” is its ability to transport the viewer via dreamy time machine, re-creating the era impressively but maintaining a tight focus.
If you feel the film meanders or is too myopic, that’s the point: It’s the young Bob Dylan wrestling with his roots, idols and place in the world. Little else bleeds in, and the film is not afraid to be critical of perhaps the greatest songwriter of the modern era. History does get manipulated some, but mostly for effect and efficiency, and Chalamet clearly did his homework, while the supporting cast of Norton, Barbaro, Holbrook and Fanning all strum along seamlessly in tune.
Long, overindulgent and absolutely riveting, the first feature film by Harvard grad Joshua Oppenheimer is hard to make heads or tails of as it explores life after the end of the world. The cinematic visionary who blew audiences away with his imaginative documentaries on the Indonesian death squads of the 1960s (“The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence,” both Oscar nominated) saddles up with Tilda Swinton, it boy George McKay of “1917” – already having a banner year with “The Beast” and the hard-hitting “Femme” to his credit – and Michael Shannon, who starred in the similarly themed, “Take Shelter” (2011). They play Mother, Son and Father, respectively. Along with “Nightbitch,” also currently in theaters, this no-name concept seems to be the arthouse convention du jour.
We catch up with the trio living the posh life in a bunker a half-mile underground after the rest of the world has been burned to a crisp. The shelter is in the labyrinth of an abandoned salt mine bought presciently decades ago by Father, a former oil exec (who, by proximity, had a hand in the incineration of humankind). Son was born in the bowels of that salt mine, and the well-tended-to trio are not alone in their enclave. With them are a doctor (Lennie James, “The Walking Dead”), a cook (Bronagh Gallagher) and a butler (Tim McInnerny, “Gladiator II”). Everything for the most is safe and good, and their biggest discomfort is the bitter sourness of the wine they vinify. Then an interloper drops in – almost literally. The arrival of the young woman known as Girl (Moses Ingram) is not welcomed. Mother and Father have a xenophobic policy and initially restrain and restrict Girl; eventually they admit her into their midst, where as you can guess, sexual tensions with Son rise quickly and cause social dynamics and routines to shift.
Did I mention that “The End” – not to be confused with the similarly titled and themed 2013 film “This is the End” starring Jonah Hill and James Franco – is a musical? For his two Indonesian hit-squad docs, Oppenheimer stepped outside the boundaries of nonnarrative convention and gave former squad leaders resources (money and cameras) to make their own films depicting their recollection of their parts in the bloody overthrow. One made a garish musical with former killers dressed in drag and singing alongside the cascading waters of a grand waterfall. Could that have been the inspiration for the cast of “The End” to break into song in the dusty corridors of a salt mine? The probability is too overwhelming to deny.
The overall fabric of “The End” is not too far from L.Q. Jones’s postapocalyptic“A Boy and His Dog” (1975), in which Don Johnson as that “boy” discovers an underground Eden and ultimately upends an order serving mostly an elite few. Besides the gender role swap, the other notable delta between the films is the causality for eradication – global nuclear annihilation or human-triggered climate change catastrophes. Oppenheimer doesn’t harangue the audience by climbing onto the climate change pulpit, a theme more clearly held off in the corner of the frame. For his microsociety, there’s no wrestling with what-ifs, because it’s already happened, but members have guilt and admit to things they did that led to the perishing of others.
Given the texture of his films, it’s clear that the cleansing power of confession is something that drives Oppenheimer – it was the thing he sought to educe from Indonesian militia leaders after decades of denial. The result in those films was stunning, emotionally impactful and horrific; here, narrative artifice diminishes that impact, but “The End” is effectual in its own right. It is gorgeously framed and shot, with near period-piece delicacy, and the performers create sharp characters and prove quite capable when dropping into song. The offset between Swinton’s subtle, ethereal otherworldliness and Shannon’s gruff bristle takes a while to digest, but serves the film well. “The End” does go on a bit too long for the concept, but effectively provokes with themes of isolationism, empowered entitlement and one’s responsibility to a fellow human, as well as stewardship of the vast blue orb we’ve indelibly infected through negligence and avarice.
Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William Burroughs’ semiautobiographical novella is a steamy walk on the wild side set in 1950s Mexico City and destinations south. Bond guy Daniel Craig goes all-in as Burroughs alter ego William Lee, a compulsive yet civil expat with means and a predatory tick. For those who wondered what Craig would do after letting go of 007, “Queer” signals something more than just the bawdy good fun of his Benoit Blanc romps (“Knives Out,”“Glass Onion”). Here, the actor turns in a bold change-up that’s more than worthy of awards banter. Lee has relocated to Mexico, because – at the time – it was one of the few havens for a man of stature wanting to pursue same-sex dalliances as well as illicit drug use without the inherent social and legal persecution that was (and still is?) rife and looming in the states. Beyond the bustling “queer” community Lee’s embedded in, he can score smack or coke easily around the corner, a real win-win for a gentlemanly hedonist. The film’s broken into three chapters, the first two focusing on Lee’s obsessive pursuit of a tall, sculpted, younger lad by the name of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), another American hanging out in Mexico City trying to work out their place in the world and through the bigger ideological issues that confronted Burroughs and his fellow Beats. For a good long while, Allerton remains at an arm’s length, aloof and just out of reach, but “Queer” morphs into something of a buddy road trip as we steer into the third chapter and the pair head to Ecuador and Panama with the goal of greater euphoria and enlightenment (and telepathy, Lee hopes). The circumstances that led Burroughs to Mexico, and to write “Queer,” are intriguing: He had just accidentally shot and killed his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of Willam Tell (leading also to Burroughs’ 1954 novel, “Naked Lunch,” adapted adroitly to the screen by David Cronenberg in 1991). Given its content, “Queer” would not get published until 1985. Guadagnino, who’s skilled at projecting carnivorous carnality on screen (“Suspiria,”“Challengers,”“Bones and All”), simmers up a slow-building character study steeped in lust and drugs. As with all the Italian auteur’s films, “Queer” is crafted gorgeously from a cinematic standpoint, but its dips into surrealism late in the film are narratively awkward. There’s a thinness and slight disjointedness that at times threaten to pull one out, but even those foibles are offset easily by Craig’s screen-consuming commitment to the part.
‘Nightbitch’ (2024)
Rachel Yoder’s novel, which touched a nerve about the disproportional contributions the male and the female of the species make when it comes to child rearing, looked primed for the big screen with Amy Adams cast in the lead and the capable Marielle Heller to direct. Heller, as you may recall, blazed her way onto the screen with the intimate 2015 coming-of-age drama “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” but here, with Yoder’s experimental text about a mother who may or may not be transforming into a dog (thus the title), domestic themes dealing with the onus of matronly nurture, the male provider complex and even the glass ceiling feel contrived and forced. “I don’t want to be trapped inside a 1950s marriage,” says Adams’ Mother (the characters have no names) to her clueless husband (Scoot McNairy). He’s not a bad guy, but does regularly drop into video game oblivion as Mother, ever put upon (or so that’s the lens of the film), tends to their 2-year-old. “Nightbitch” is a deeply internal film, with Mother reflecting regularly on (and brooding about) her status and the relative (in)equality in the homestead. The kick comes when she starts to commune with the pack of dogs that roam her suburban neighborhood; later her teeth get sharp and pointy, meat becomes a must munch, patches of fur begin to spring up here and there and there’s the unsavory discovery of a burgeoning tail. “An American Werewolf in London” (1981), this is not. The context of what is real and what is not is often hard to glean – and more so, you just don’t care. Sure, it’s a clear manifestation of Mother’s emotional state and a bigger metaphor for the unrecognized burden of motherhood being taking for granted, but as presented it’s lazily murky, unlike how Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000) deftly blurred reality, delusion and the externalization of emotional anxiety. Adams puts in a game effort, but Mother’s not that deep or interesting, and neither is McNairy’s husband, resulting in a generic couple living generic lives and going through generic ennui. The pooch stuff, as rendered, feels tacked-on. As a feminist poke, “Nightbitch” makes its point, but not convincingly so. It’s frustrating to watch the talented Adams (“Arrival,” “American Hustle”) dig deep only to get collared by a flat script, and the cinematic act of going from reality to body-morphing alter reality should have been punched up more. “Nightbitch” whimpers slowly into the night, a fangless could-have-been.
Not a claymation curio for the whole family, nor a sequel to “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (2021). No, this very dark and adult animated tale of twins separated after the death of their father and placed in foster care has edgy, plot-driving incursions into swinging, fat feeding, pyromania and religious zealotry. The film is wickedly funny at times but tenderly bittersweet, with deeply realized characters. The casting, an inspired all-star slate from Down Under, pairs “Succession” star Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“Power of the Dog”) as Grace and Gilbert Pudel, fraternal twins born with health issues and bullied at school. Mom died early and dad, a street performer who struggles to keep the family afloat, succumbs a few years later; Grace and Gilbert get placed with families at opposite ends of Australia. Much of the film is told through the longing letters between the two, desperate to reunite. Neither is in an ideal situation. Gilbert lives with Calvinist religious zealots who want to “pray the gay out” and abusively employ him as indentured labor on their apple orchard. Grace lives pretty much on her own in a nice house, because her absentee foster parents are swingers and darting constantly out to key parties or nudist retreats. Her bestie is an 80-year-old firecracker named Pinky (a brilliant Jacki Weaver), whose tale of how she earned the nickname and a sidebar about having sex with John Denver in a helicopter are uproarious delights. Directed by Adam Elliot, making a strong impression with his second feature, “Memoir of a Snail” is agile in construct and scrumptious to behold – “The Nightmare Before Christmas” good. The “shell” theme about the personal baggage we all carry around with us and how we withdraw or put up walls is a bit thinly etched, but the movie’s sibling bond is strongly felt. It’s like the dark, loving embrace of Tim Burton done with the edgy verve of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It’s also one of the best films you can see in a theater now.
‘A Real Pain’ (2024)
Another film featuring a “Succession” star (in addition to Sarah Snook in “Memoir of a Snail” and “The Apprentice,” starring Jeremy Strong in an Oscar-worthy turn, now on Amazon Prime). Kieran Culkin stars opposite Jessie Eisenberg (“The Social Network”) as Benji to his David, cousins who sojourn to Poland to visit the house their Holocaust-surviving grandmother lived in and connect with their Jewish roots. The two are cut from vastly different cloths; Benji is slack, conflicted and seemingly adrift, whereas David is rooted (married, with a child) and tightly wound. We never get the full details of their stateside profiles, but they don’t much matter and you can fill in the blanks easily given their dynamic. The pair signs onto a Holocaust tour led by an amiable guide (Will Sharpe) who, along with a survivor of the Rwandan civil war (Kurt Egyiawan) examining the toll of genocide in other parts of the world, are the only two who do not have personal, Jewish ties to Poland. In the group too is Jennifer Grey of “Dirty Dancing” fame as a middle-aged woman going through a tough divorce. Benji sidetracks the group regularly with his raffish whims – posing for photos at a statue of liberating soldiers as if part of the platoon, or requesting that the guide dig into the souls of Holocaust victims and tell their story rather than just reciting their names from a register. He becomes something of the group’s mercurial class clown, though many of his politely peevish plays are sparked by seeds of genuine emotional intelligence. He’s an amiable lost boy and clearly one subject of the film’s title. As youths, he and David used to be closer, but given time, space and the arc of life, have grown apart, so “the pain” refers also to Benji’s loneliness and the pair’s fraying over the years as well as the inherent trauma of digging into the atrocities of the past. The film, written and directed by Eisenberg, has a talky, European meandering feel to it, a bit like those Linklater films that paired Ethan Hawke with Julie Delpy – people who care deeply for each other yet who talk around a topic. Eisenberg also avoids making the Holocaust a didactic distraction with leaden exposition. It’s present in every frame, but “A Real Pain” is a character study first. Eisenberg, cutting just his second feature, does a solid job of balancing the tale with the looming shadow of world-changing events. It’s a journey of revelation and reconnection that works on the strength of authentic, awkward chemistry between its two leads.
“The Wild Robot,” “Don’t Move” and “Woman of the Hour”
‘The Wild Robot’ (2024)
A very “Wall-E”-esque pleaser with something to say about humans, machines, emotional intelligence and environmental stewardship. Marrying all that together is an AI ’bot named Roz (voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave,” “Us”) whose shipping container is tossed overboard during a storm, marooning her on a remote island with rich Northeastern biodiversity (pinewoods, bears, beavers, geese and possums) that feels right out of Camden, Maine. Roz is a home helper droid made by a megacompany like Amazon to perform tasks such as making beds, building sheds, shearing sheep and so on. Borrowing a page from Isaac Asimov, the semihumanoid robot (think a rounder C-3PO with spindly arms and legs) has a “do no harm” rule – or close enough. Stranded in a humanless remote, Roz reprograms herself to learn animal lingo and learns that the fauna refer to her as “the monster.” In the awkward dance of finding a task to do, tragic happenstance has Roz becoming the mother imprint for a runt gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor). The to-do then teaching the hatchling how to forage for food, swim and ultimately fly, because the fall migration is around the corner. Other geese don’t think Brightbill is long for this world and bully him, while hanging close to Roz is Fink (“Mandalorian” Pedro Pascal), a fox posing as a knowing adviser when his true intent is a fast meal. Roz’s transmitter to HQ keeps dropping out or breaking, which ultimately brings to the island a maintenance droid (Stephanie Hsu, “The Menu”) that’s not a fan of Roz developing emotionally. Issues of AI and the environment are at the fore, without pulling focus from the central core bonding of Roz, Fink and Brightbill. The animation, as orchestrated by Oscar nominee Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch,” “How to Train Your Dragon”) is well-envisioned and robust and likely to earn him another nod (though it’ll have some real competition from the Latvian gem “Flow” that just played The Brattle). But the heart of the film is castaway Roz, a tin woodswoman who becomes emotionally aware.
‘Don’t Move’ (2024)
Nice-guy serial killers seem to be all the rage. Already this year we’ve had bad dad Josh Hartnett in “Trap,” and “Dating Game” contestant Rodney Alcala in Anna Kendrick’s impressive true-crime-adjacent debut “Woman of the Hour.” Now we get this tale of cat-and-mouse survivorship in which a grieving mother hiking the California mountains (Kelsey Asbille) stands at a ledge contemplating a jump and is talked down sort-of by a dashing, passing-by dad-guy (Finn Wittrock, so fun as one of the two DIY hedge fund knuckleheads in “The Big Short”). Everything’s cordial until they get to the trailhead parking lot and Wittrock’s Richard tases Asbille’s Iris. Iris is zip-tied, tossed in the back of his car and told that he’s going to take her to his cabin, braid her hair and add her to his list of female bodies at the bottom of the lake. Iris gets free and nearly overpowers Richard, and that’s when he hits her with his Plan B: She’s been injected with a paralyzing agent that’s 20 minutes away from kicking in. The film, directed by Brian Netto and Adam Schindler, moves in unpredictable turns as others – a police officer and a fellow cabin owner – cross paths with Richard and Iris. The tension remains high even if elements of the underlying story don’t quite work, including the how and why for Richard’s predilection. Asbille, controversial for her claims of Native Americans origins to shore up her casting as an Indigenous person in the hit series “Yellowstone,” is a bit too glamorous in the part but still compelling, doing much with her large, luminous eyes and trembling lips because, at one point, that’s all she got. It’s not bad, but if you’re on Netflix, “Woman of the Hour” is the better way to spend your time.
‘Woman of the Hour’ (2023)
Actress Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with this chilling true-crime-adjacent serial-killer thriller set in the late ’70s. Like this year’s “MaXXXine,” it revels in the era’s scummy kitsch and skewers its rampant misogyny. The main event is a “Dating Game” show segment in which a young, aspiring actor named Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is a reluctant contestant, having signed on at the behest of her agent. If you’ve never seen “The Dating Game” or other indelible shows of the time such as “The Gong Show” and “The Newlywed Game,” they’re peppered with innuendos, evoking a degree of cringeworthiness that’s captured well by Kendrick and writer Ian McDonald. Bachelor No. 1 is a bit of a blockhead who can’t answer a question confidently, No. 2’s not much better, but at least he doesn’t trip over his tongue. Then there’s No. 3, who cleans up, masterfully playing off Sheryl’s wit and verve and turning his adversaries’ miscues to his advantage. He’s also Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), who that year would be arrested and convicted of the murder of six women – and implicated in as many as 130 murders. Of course, he’s Sheryl’s pick. Kendrick and McDonald transform a rote, straight-ahead story into an ever-shifting collage of terror and charm, with cutaways showing Alcala helping a flight attendant move into her apartment, taking snaps of a lonely pregnant woman abandoned by her boyfriend at a national park, and a beach party photo shoot. I don’t need to tell you how these encounters go; it’s how Kendrick decides to shoot and navigate the grimness that matters, as it’s done with subtle, unconventional style and great, visceral affect. Zovatto is a great casting choice and performer, and his Alcala is a natural charmer with a brimming undercurrent of malice – echoing Philip Seymour Hoffman in some of his roles, or Vincent D’Onofrio in “Full Metal Jacket” (1987). Kendrick, not far from her refuses-to-be-a-victim persona of “A Simple Favor” (2018), has some feminist zing as Sheryl, going off script in the final round to ask the bachelors, “What are girls for?” You know Alcala’s a killer early, giving many of his scenes – with his prey, or in the offices of the Los Angeles Times, where he freelances as a photographer – a delectable unpredictability and creepiness. It’s an ambitious and impressive debut for Kendrick, and one that should bear greater casting opportunities for Zovatto.
In a single decade Francis Ford Coppola made not just one but four cinema-defining films: “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974); “The Conversation” (1974); and of course “Apocalypse Now” (1979). It’s a feat hard to beat, but since “Apocalypse Now,” which riveted audiences upon release and garners the adoration of each new generation of cinephiles, Coppola’s output has been less iconic. It’s varied from well-crafted S.E. Hinton adaptations (“The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish”) to the purposefully idealistic (“Tucker: The Man and His Dream”), some lighthearted comedies (“Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Jack”), a megaselling John Grisham lawyer yarn (“The Rainmaker”) and of course his “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), all receiving middling receptions. Later in his career, there was work (“Tetro” and “Youth Without Youth”) that piqued interest but never quite went the distance. His latest, “Megalopolis,” is an ambitious, convoluted mess – pretty much a full-frontal mega-flop. To say so comes with great sadness.
Coppola allegedly pawned part of his vineyard and leveraged himself financially for this project, one he’s been incubating for nearly 40 years. From the insightful documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” (1991), which chronicled the ruinous challenges surmounted to make “Apocalypse Now,” we know Coppola is an incredibly passionate and resourceful filmmaker. He’s bucked trends and gone it alone without studio funding before; in this case, maybe getting other eyes and thoughts involved could have salvaged something.
What’s the movie about? Platitudes and posturing on the future of and control over an urban micro-universe in the near, slightly dystopian future – something the current streaming series “The Penguin” does a much better job of. In this case it’s not Gotham, but New Rome, a city that’s closer to New York City now than any Batman-related project. Everything the camera homes in on is 1920s art deco, with much cinematic worship of the Chrysler Building.
In the opener, Adam Driver’s Cesar Catalina, a master architect and something of a nihilist Leonardo da Vinci, steps out on the ledge of the Chrysler Building to observe the activity below. When it looks like he might tumble off or jump, he shouts, “Time! Stop!” And it does. Everything but Cesar freezes – all the cars like ants below, birds in the air, the wind-pushed clouds and so on. With a snap of his fingers everything returns to normal. But even with such a gift, Cesar is not omnipotent, and he has many detractors, especially Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants to rebuild crumbling New Rome with casinos, corruption and cronyism. Cesar, head of the Design Authority, wants to build the utopia of the title, something that will “evolve alongside its people.”
Aside from his neat party trick, Cesar has a Nobel Prize for creating Megalon, a substance that can channel one’s dreams and make desires into reality. In an origin myth, one could see it leveraged by god or the gods to build Earth. In this case Cesar uses it to build an organic, ever-evolving city.
In the latest from Azazel Jacobs (“French Exit”) grief and sisterly differences are wrestled with as familial tensions crest, crash, subside and flow. We open in a small, spare Brooklyn apartment (black pleather couches, an Ikea-esque dining set and no carpeting) as estranged sisters Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) try to work out the logistics of their terminally ill father’s final hospice cycle. Katie, the oldest, is a bit of a control freak, as evidenced by her telephone disagreements with her husband and teenage daughter back home in California. Christina’s the idealistic free spirit trying to hold the situation together while figuring out the next chapter in her life, and Rachel is the one who’s been living with dad and taking care of him while slacking around the apartment and smoking weed. In short, three very different personalities that, given the heightened emotional state, clash more than not. The three leads deliver genuine, deeply felt performances that ripple with rage, regret and vulnerability. In scope and tenor, “His Three Daughters” is not far off from Florian Zeller’s quietly compelling “The Father” (2020), including a shift in reality that brings home the palpable final punch. The are times the film – which one could imagine as an intimate, in-the-round stage play – gets a bit too cyclical, but usually the dutiful hospice worker named Angel (Rudy Galvan) steps in to update the trio on the changing reality. He’s regarded as both valued family ally and annoying interloper. You never really see or hear the father other than as the sound of a respirator and beeps from a heart monitor reverberating from the back room while the three women in the tiny living room try to make sense of their past, present and future as a family.
‘Merchant Ivory’ (2024)
Stephen Soucy’s hagiography of the legendary filmmaking tandem that produced such critically acclaimed period dramas as “Howard’s End” (1985), “A Room with a View” (1992) and “Remains of the Day” (1993) puts their output into historical and cultural context and pulls back the veil on the challenges the two faced as a gay couple during less accepting times. Their films were the backbone of art house cinema in the ’80s and ’90s and beyond, until producer Ismail Merchant’s untimely death in 2005. Director James Ivory is still with us and spry in his mid-90s as he offers candid insight into production challenges and his dynamic with Merchant, the high-energy producer always looking to cut costs (you’d be shocked at how little some of these classics were made for) and shill projects to potential investors versus Ivory’s more somber, quiet approach. Soucy gives you the full rewind from Ivory being an adoptee (Ivory notes that the Paul Newman post-Depression, Great War film “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge” felt reflective of his childhood) to Merchant’s upbringing as a Muslim in Northern India, as well as a look into the rest of a production company “family” that included screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German-born Jew reared in England (due to a guy named Hitler), and composer Richard Robbins, educated at the New England Conservatory. It was Jhabvala’s prize-winning book “Heat and Dust” that drew interest from Merchant and Ivory; when they chose to adapt, they educed a career shift for Jhabvala, collaborating on 16 films and winning Oscars for “Howard’s End” and “A Room with a View.” Troupe regulars Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave and Helena Bonham Carter are on hand to chime in, as are Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves, who starred together in “Maurice” (1987), a film Soucy and Ivory home in on specifically – not only because of its examination of a closeted gay couple during a time when being gay was a crime in Britain, but because of its powerful context at the time of its release when the AIDs crisis and Act Up were beginning to boil over. The access Soucy earns and Ivory’s frankness create an intimate portrait, including the willingness to concede that some of the team’s later films (“Jefferson in Paris” and “A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries” among them), while well funded, never registered the kind of critical success as the earlier films. Ivory’s only Oscar came as a writer in 2018 on “Call Me By Your Name.” Breathing in Soucy’s intoxicating love letter, you wish you could go back in time and be part of the Merchant-Ivory “family.” You will also want to go back and rewatch their classics, and perhaps even revisit some of those so-called miscues.
