IFC Films
The Luckiest Man in America (2025)
“The Luckiest Man in America,” about a long-forgotten American gameshow scandal from the mid-’80s, has landed in an exhausting moment of American history. Audiences seeking escapism from the problems of the now might enjoy a few hours’ refuge in the much lighter problems of the past. Other than that, the main appeal of “The Luckiest Man in America” is wondering why it has been made at all. Is it about how the systems are rigged against the little guy? Is it about how, when the systems are rigged, cheating becomes an honorable thing?
Continue reading "Beating the Game" »
Kino Lorber
According to the cliché Paul Schrader's tormented males journal their pain and get it down on paper; but in "Oh, Canada" Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) might struggle to hold the pen. Enfeebled by terminal cancer, stuck in a wheelchair and in need of assistance on and off the lavatory, Leonard does a more cinematic thing and unburdens himself to a camera instead. As a renowned documentarian - the "Ken Burns of Canada" we hear - Leonard is supposed to be telling a camera crew about his life and times, including the 1960s flight from the U.S. Vietnam War draft that took him to the slower waters north of the border in the first place. This testimony involves Leonard directly addressing the camera, which the film, as an inside joke, calls the signature style of his documentaries. Mr. Schrader and anyone familiar with the work of Errol Morris knows that it's actually the Interrotron set-up that Mr. Morris uses for his own documentaries, designed to torment interviewees and lever confessions out of people who know they have things to confess. Leonard fits the bill.
Continue reading "Slow Country for Old Men" »
Apple TV+
“Wolfs” is the new action-comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney and directed by Jon Watts, who is responsible for the last three “Spider-Man” movies. It should get some butts in seats on these names alone; here we have two of Hollywood’s surviving movie stars who’ve earned their stripes before the industry’s almost complete pivot to IPs in an effort to draw box office. But these household names and their screen personae can be a blessing and sometimes a curse. Case in point: “Wolfs.”
Continue reading "The Odd Couple" »
La Biennale di Venezia
It’s always delightful when a beloved director decides to do a silly one. Based on the overexcited cheers and fervent applause at the piracy warning – not even the opening credits! – before the first press screening at the Venice Biennale, “Broken Rage” is going to be met with howls of delight wherever it goes. It’s a 62-minute-long parody of crime cinema, written, edited and directed by Takeshi Kitano, starring himself. It is also an entirely coherent cinematic experience even as it twists in upon the story it is telling; and it makes the delightful choice of getting stupider by the second. This is unlikely to be the capstone to Mr. Kitano’s career, but regardless “Broken Rage” obeys two important showbiz adages: always leave them laughing; and always leave them wanting more.
Continue reading "Alternate Takes" »
Fourth Act Film
After centuries of conflict and decades of occupation by the latest foreign army, a country picks up the pieces. Local politics reforms; young men look for work; a diminished government takes stock of its military equipment to work out which guns function and which might fall apart when anyone pulls the trigger. It also ponders, in this case, what to do with $7 billion-worth of the most advanced efficient killing technology in existence, left behind by the United States. For this is Afghanistan in 2021: the weapons are those given to the Afghan government by the U.S. before the latter withdrew chaotically and the former fell apart; and the people finding the stuff left behind are the Taliban.
Continue reading "Arms and the Men" »
Tribeca Festival
Eternal Playground (2024)
Any movie about a group of friends reuniting after a funeral risks comparisons with “The Big Chill,” but this endearing French movie makes that simile a reach for two reasons: the characters are all in their mid-20s, and the location of their reunion is their old middle school. Literally. It’s where Gaspard (Andranic Manet) teaches music, and where he and his late sister, Louise (voiced in his thoughts by Noée Abita), also studied as kids. It’s in the center of Paris, but so ignored in the early summer holidays that Gaspard can sneak his mates in without anyone in the neighborhood noticing. It’s this combination of memory and invisibility that makes “Eternal Playground” a rewarding watch. It’s also a potent reminder to many American individuals what our me-first society has lost.
Continue reading "Reliving Childhood" »
Tribeca Festival
Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara (2024)
Any documentary, mock or not, about a band from New Zealand still exists in the shadow of “Flight of the Conchords.” And while it is to be regretted that there are no band meetings in which somebody takes attendance, that’s because “Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara” is telling a very different story to the Tribeca Festival. The duo at the core of the movie, brothers Henry and Lewis De Jong, formed their thrash metal band when they were 10 and 8 years old respectively. Director Kent Belcher’s camera follows them from 2018 to 2023, so when drummer Henry goes from around 18 to 24 and lead singer-guitarist Lewis goes from 16 to his 21st birthday party. What they have achieved at such young ages is astounding, all the more when you learn large portion of their songs are in Māori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. But the global metal scene is large enough to embrace them; and the ways in which they find their place in it are charmingly explored in this surprisingly gentle movie.
Continue reading "Band of Brothers" »
Tribeca Festival
Michael Angarano boasts a truly impressive resume that includes acting in films by Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, Cameron Crowe, Thomas Vinterberg, Wes Craven et al., but his own name only registers as vaguely familiar. Probably even lesser known is the fact that he has writing and directing credits under his belt, from 2017’s “Avenues.” For his sophomore directorial outing, “Sacramento,” which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, he has assembled a luminous cast that includes Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart and Maya Erskine, his real-life spouse. His filmmaking oeuvre so far recalls that of Zach Braff, dealing with growing pains of the manchild. And where is Mr. Braff now? Doing T-Mobile commercials.
Continue reading "End of the Road" »
Tribeca Festival
Andrew McCarthy was a likable young actor in his 20s and now makes a likable documentarian in his 60s, digging back into his own past life. "Brats" follows Mr. McCarthy on a road trip visiting some of the other former members of the group of 1980s actors loosely – or lazily – grouped together by the media under the label of "the Brat Pack," although the looseness and laziness of the term are two of the things that prove to rankle interviewer and interviewees alike. Having already written an autobiography under the title "Brat: An '80s Story" in 2021, Mr. McCarthy has gone from the singular to the plural, reconnecting with actors and crew he has not seen for decades, to test whether they are still unnerved by the memory of the B-word as much as he is.
Continue reading "Show Biz Kids" »
Tribeca Festival
S/He Is Still Her/e – The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary (2024)
This film is subtitled "The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary," writer-director David Charles Rodrigues having received access to relevant family archives and the approval of the subject's daughters, attached here as executive producers. Whether official can mean definitive in this case is a different question. What would a definitive portrait even be of the English musician, performance artist, occultist, antagonist for the Britain's moldering Conservative establishment, loving parent, esotericist, associate of William S. Burroughs and protean engineer of their own identity in both mental and physical terms? Any 98 minute snapshot will only be a cross section, a slice through the matrix, a prompt to see how someone else's mapping of their own innerspace might shed some parallel light on your own.
Continue reading "All Under Control" »