The tradition of film protagonists who pine for prime time glory has whisked away a portly Baltimore heroine with fabulous flair and hair to break bandstand barriers, a Brighton Beach widow to risk addiction en route to game show gains and a failed comedian to pursue his darkest impulses with a sinister smile on a late night broadcast. The isolated adolescent characters played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in Jane Shoenbrun’s psychological horror-drama I Saw the TV Glow (B-) dream of escape into a nostalgic supernatural girl power show to fight monsters of the week, but it’s unclear who’s the show-runner and if either is remotely in control of overcoming a series of traumas. Shoenbrun creates a luminous look for this movie, laced with ribbons of lavender haze and mesmerizing low budget creature effects, and a detailed backstory so fully fleshed out, you almost wish the show-within-the-show took center stage. As committed as both leads are to their roles, they bring similar ambivalent energy that doesn’t always fully enliven the pace but offer aching portraits of coming of age in a world of mixed signals. It’s a film full of creative ideas, many more fully rendered than others. A less than satisfactory final act fails to build on some of the most intriguing plot points, but the movie is overall an original with enough intrigue and whimsy to earn this mystery box a recommendation.
According to some fun Peachtree City, Georgia public documents and public zoning hearings from 2022, a local news story and the wonderment of my own eyes:
“The motel … purchased … by … LLC of Francis Ford Coppola, named the All Movie Motel … began submitting building permits … to renovate and make major changes … to include a ‘green room,’ a screening room, a projection room …. a non-commercial kitchen … rooms/suites for actors and movie production staff.”
Plus Roman columns and a Dustin Hoffman statue, of course!?
With #Megalopolis on the mind this week of Cannes Film Festival, here was a neat surprise chronicled in our local newspaper about a filmmaking and wine-making genius who is even inventive about lodging his staff and housing his screening rooms:
The futuristic fall movie “Megalopolis” premiered at Cannes Film Festival with Hollywood stars and Atlanta credits plus our site’s commentary about Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic universe:
Futuristic 'Megalopolis' premieres at Cannes with Hollywood stars and Atlanta credits – and my commentary about Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic universe https://t.co/mWu2PfM5SB
— Stephen Michael Brown (@stephenatl) May 17, 2024
The young man who came of age celebrating dead poets gracefully plumbs a tantalizing tortured prose department where a next gen Hawke memorably portrays a legendary artist as a young woman. Ethan Hawke co-writes and directs, and Maya Hawke plays iconoclast author Flannery O’Connor in the soulful conversation-starter Wildcat (A). Dutiful Catholic O’Connor’s short life in mid-century America is marked by an epic struggle between becoming a great writer and loving God sufficiently. The albatross of her perpetual quandary is exacerbated by being an increasingly isolated woman who bucks social norms and whose writing is unabashedly ahead of its time. Her drive to produce fascinating work, her grappling with physical disability and her subsequent return to provincial living are the trio of crucibles undergirding the film’s narrative. Maya Hawke is absolutely captivating in the demanding central performance and projects herself into multiple roles in her stories, so much so it becomes vexing at times to ascertain where reality ends and the fantasy of fiction begins. O’Connor doles out signature prickly quips and delves head-first into a peculiar fascination with confessional stories tracing the fault lines between faith, transgression and salvation amidst the grotesquerie of the American South. Vignettes include unsentimental encounters with terrible men including an ex-con (Levon Hawke), a nomad ne’er-do-well (Steve Zahn) and a conflicted Bible salesman (Cooper Hoffman). The standout supporting turn is by Laura Linney as the writer’s holier-than-thou mother, whose prejudices and pieties clash magnificently with her daughter’s defiant sensibilities. At times Felliniesque with its fantastical interlaced characters, each Baroque in their own way, against the gray and rust tones of the film’s Southern Gothic terrain, Ethan Hawke successfully mind melds his own fascination with life’s mystical mysteries with O’Connor’s catalogue of complexities. The film plays like a page-turning fever dream and is a testament to the ensemble and the central father-daughter talents behind this passion project. Whether you’re steeped in her lore already or the film’s smorgasbord of stories is your gateway drug, there’s loads to learn from this literary patron saint. This is truly a “star is born” cinematic high watermark moment for Maya Hawke who is mesmerizing on screen and particularly effective opposite the likes of Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Rafael Cassal and Christine Dye. This curiosity-stoking film should prompt stampedes to the local library to unlock the pleasures of the O’Connorverse.
The comedy/action remake of a classic TV series comes in roaring like a lion and devolves into a cat nap. Stunt coordinator-turned-director David Leitch’s The Fall Guy (B-) contains an abundance of awesome ingredients, including some outrageous pratfalls, fabulous soundtrack needle-drops and charismatic leads Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt as stuntman and director, respectively, with ample romantic chemistry simmering. The mysterious meta story set in the world of the production of a big-budget interplanetary blockbuster action movie involves a quest to recover a missing leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson as an irritating egomaniac) in time to save the production. The film’s best visual gags involve the vocabulary of cinema, as a heated conversation takes place in a “oner” filled with explosions or as the central pair contemplates the value of split-screen sequences while in one. Unfortunately the slight story rarely serves the massive talents of the leads; the production feels like it needed some reshoots made impossible by industry strikes. It’s often a fun lark; and as expected, the stunts are really good. It just doesn’t completely deliver on its promise or sustain its carefree spirit with quite the finesse it could have.
Both a venerable newspaper and a half-century of long-gestating music and cultural movement reclaim global relevance in the excellent documentary The South Got Something to Say (A), directed by The Horne Brothers as the first film created and curated by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. The film, presented this week in competition at the Atlanta Film Festival and now streaming on the newspaper’s website, has been hatched with the imprimatur and immediacy of immersive gonzo journalism. It is a testament to how news coverage can shape-shift with the times into a genre most befitting its subjects. This era-spanning oral history gives context to its story of musicians with a mission as it chronicles early days of hip hop in the 1970s through the eyes of Atlanta’s first rapper Mojo, the election of Maynard Jackson as the first Black mayor of the Southeastern city, the pall of the Atlanta Child Murders and the celebration following the apprehension of a perpetrator, the gentrification of events such as the Olympics and, most recently, protest movements in the light of a nation’s racial reckoning. Directors Ryan and Tyson Horne wisely structure and set their scene to authentically ground the family tree of music movements emerging from an unlikely place, including chart-topping earworms unleashed by eager and creative self-made mega-producers, music that emerged from unlikely places such as the projects and “dank dungeons” and pristine churches, plus crunk and trap soundscapes and innovations still evolving today. The movie’s title comes from the mic-drop moment at the 1995 Source Awards, as East and West coast factions feuding was the simmering cycle of the day, when Outkast member Andre 3000 proclaimed his part of the country the epicenter of the music movement, and his city’s creatives haven’t taken their feet off the pedal since, en route to global cultural dominance. The filmmakers blend anecdotes from artists who are lesser-known or potentially forgotten to time with some of the most renowned headliners on earth to spotlight the inspirations for their emerging sounds and how adjacent fashion, dance, lifestyle and self-expression trends all reflect deep roots in community. Speech, T.I., Dallas Austin, Princess, Killer Mike, CeeLo Green and the late Rico Wade are among the fascinating storytellers, showcasing history in interviews, archival footage, music videos, home movies and of course the enduring songs themselves. From afternoons gliding through nostalgia of skating rinks to peering at campus life at HBCUs to trialing new tracks at Magic City, plus life at concerts and cookouts, the movie expresses joy and its subjects’ will to be seen and heard. The devil comes down to Georgia in all the film’s rich details, from graphic identifiers reminiscent of old cassette tapes to a climactic event in downtown Atlanta depicted with immediacy from multiple points of view. Neither overly bossy nor glossy in its hot takes, the filmmakers stuff ample history into the movie’s shaking bounty. Shedding light and insight to creativity in constant motion, this definitive documentary is highly recommended.
It’s time to say bye, bye, bye to myths about age gap relationships as a 40-year-old divorcee single mom embarks on a love affair with the 24-year-old frontman of a fictional hit boy band. Built on the star-powered shoulders of Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, Michael Showalter’s rom-dram The Idea of You (B) is an enjoyable if not terribly original romp. Despite the fun and fantasy of the film’s premise, the director grounds the story in its lead characters’ humanity and the real-life complications dusted up in their unexpected collision. Hathaway is plucky and authentic as an art gallery curator, and Galitzine is a natural charmer and singer in his role as a superstar. Together they make for a steamy duo. The protagonist’s impulse to keep the romance secret including from her teenage daughter presents some silly subplots, while the through-line of self-doubt and sabotage is very relatable. Many finely observed moments abound in this mostly mainstream fare, and the leads buoy its believability. This movie is pure paperback poolside reading in filmed form and promises to make a delightful date night viewing.
It’s a love triangle with more than a touch of tennis envy as a palace intrigue story of sorts plays out court-side among the agile athletes of Luca Guadagnino’s smart, sassy guilty pleasure romantic drama Challengers (B+). Three characters are front and center in a plot that zig-zags and thirst-traps across nearly a decade and a half as two doubles tennis playing boarding school dudes find their fates as young adults en route to Grand Slam glory intertwined with a sporty force of nature played by Zendaya, who fully occupies her queen bee position in terms of fetching femininity, fitness and fashion. This is a great role for this iconic actress with much communicated in very few words. Josh O’Connor is perfection as the bad boy roustabout opposite Mike Faist’s more serene boon companion, and the chemistry on and off the court between the members of this trio is palpable. Guadagnino wisely casts his film with actors who can believably portray characters across high school, college and twentysomething years and augments the action with a fast-paced techno score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, pulling viewers deeply into a near-hypnotic trance. The twisty three-hander plot devices further reveal themselves with each escalating episode, and the film proves sexy in what it largely leaves to the imagination. This could very well become this generation’s Cruel Intentions or at the very least a double bill with Saltburn for adventurous moviegoers.
There hasn’t been a more fascinating “tied up in right’s issues” guerrilla indie since 2013’s Escape from Tomorrow, the paranoid thriller secretly filmed and set entirely in Walt Disney World. Operating under the loosest definition of parody, The People’s Joker (D+), directed by, co-written by and starring Vera Drew, premiered at 2022’s Toronto Film Festival and has been embroiled in legal challenges ever since because it leverages nearly all elements of DC’s Batman universe to craft a loosely threaded tale about transgender identity. The backstory is much more fascinating than what’s actually on-screen as Drake utilizes live action drama with occasional stop-motion and other forms of animation swirling around Drew’s transgender woman mash-up of iconic villain The Joker and sidekick/love interest Harley Quinn embodied in one protagonist. Drake’s central character is an aspiring comedienne working at a renegade theatre with Nathan Faustyn as slacker friend The Penguin to ostensibly ascend the late-night TV comedy industry. This antihero’s complex psychology isn’t served by a flimsy plot that feels like it’s being made up as it’s progressing, with the fact that it is unfunny being chalked up to the fact that the characters are making an “anti-comedy.” Kane Distler fares better than others in the ensemble as Mr. J, an emotionally manipulative trans man reminiscent of Jason Todd (a post-Dick Grayson Robin) and Jared Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad; it’s a more fleshed out character with some showy moments, but the filmmakers drop the ball here too. Although the film’s aesthetic occasionally hits promising strides including a first date in a tunnel of love, it’s mostly a long string of misses packed into those 92 minutes. Kudos to the themes of self-acceptance embedded in the go-for-broke fantasia in which The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, a CGI Nicole Kidman and a villainous Batman exist amidst an array of adjacent IP characters including Perry White, Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Betty Boop (perhaps Steamboat Willie was months from being available). An anti-depressant called Smylex administered at Arkham Asylum and acid-like vats of estrogen are among too many half-baked ideas in the madcap mishegoss. The filmmaking isn’t fascinating enough to justify the fuss. An actual parody could have been made from all these ideas; instead it’s more theft than deft.
The discourse sure to result from the release of Alex Garland’s sobering action drama Civil War (A) is akin to the elucidating actions of his central quartet of war correspondents and photographers: simply, it’s all about the processing. Garland’s brilliant film documents several days in America’s fictional second civil war through the lens of journalists struggling to survive as the U.S. government has become a dystopian dictatorship and partisan extremist militias regularly commit war crimes. Garland is opaque about the motivations and beliefs of the two sides fighting, with few political signifiers distracting the mostly neutral press from simply chronicling the events as they see them. In addition to being an exacting and efficient war movie, it’s also an illuminating multi-generational road trip with Kirsten Dunst’s measured war photographer, Cailee Spaeny as her accidental apprentice, Wagner Moura as the gonzo chaser-dude and Stephen McKinley Henderson as the sage pragmatist thrust in the middle of a war zone together. All four actors are sensational, with Dunst earning VIP status for her grizzled and guarded portrayal of a woman who can only see clearly when brandishing her camera. The film is a stunning spectacle of shock and awe with nary a false note as the four disparate characters encounter traumatic, heartbreaking, grisly and surprising episodes along their fractured odyssey. Still-frame snapshots often punctuate profound moments within action sequences to amplify the horror and humanity. Garland also physically and metaphorically thrusts his actors into extreme settings to maximize turns and themes, and the film’s final showdown ups the intensity with an epic infiltration into familiar territory to make nearly any viewer question personal allegiance. This is a motion picture designed to stir up conversation; hopefully those who embark on the resultant discussions will be as clear-minded as this skilled filmmaker in addressing the matters at hand.
The central female of Ned Benson’s romantic fantasy film The GreatestHits (C) gets literally swept back in time to the moment her deceased boyfriend was still alive each time she hears a song, be they memorable tunes by Roxy Music, Beach House or the Tune-Yards or even a terrible ear-worm jingle about donating automobiles to help children. Lucy Boynton, incidentally a kind of dead ringer for Taylor Swift down to the haircut and outfits, isn’t given much to do but brood in the face of her melancholy powers; there’s little hope of transcending the punishing and underwritten character or her convoluted sci-fi trap. David Corenswet gets even less to do as her tragic beau in flashbacks; perhaps the filmmakers are keeping the handsome actor (and future Superman) at a distance so we can cheer the protagonist in moving on with her life. The affable Justin H. Min is appealing as our heroine’s new love interest; he gets to be genuine and goofy, thoughtful and fun, and his sequences with Boynton bring out the best in both. Benson has selected a pleasant if pedestrian visual pallet for the film, and the story similarly lacks spunk or surprise. It feels a little like a commercial for a depression drug, laced with rows of candy-coated vinyl sleeves. The needle drops don’t really take the characters on much of a journey nor do they help justify the titular title. There’s a better movie to be made about the songs punctuating seminal moments in our lives, but this one is destined to simply be played in the background.
The “tonal” eclipse arrived early. Despite early buzz comparing the film favorably to Rocky, RRR, John Wick and Die Hard, the India-set revenge thriller Monkey Man (C), directed by and starring Dev Patel, is Jai-ho-hum. Other than the intrigue intrinsic in the exotic location, there’s not much creative or new going on in this picture. Patel is unsteady as both auteur and actor, although he deserves kudos for the sportsmanlike effort. The film’s politics feel defanged and rushed while the grisly action sequences often go nowhere fast. Patel, usually such a lithe and literate presence, is a man of few words as a young man avenging a crime against his family who sets his sights on toppling the top echelon of his nation’s government. Neither of his alter egos as a prizefighter festooned in ape mask nor his street fighting dishwasher with king-fu moves are as interesting as occasional flashbacks with his mother, played by the lovely Adithi Kalkunte. The protagonist is loosely inspired by the legend of Hanuman, a Hindu deity who leads an army of monkeys against the demon king Ravana. The story from epic poetry symbolizes defiance against oppression and may remind viewers how much more effective The Green Knight was in summoning verse to exhilarating effect. I’m not sure what Jordan Peele saw in this routine revenge thriller released by his production company, as this film doesn’t strongly evolve its genre.
