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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND July 19, 2019 – DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME, THE LION KING

Before we get to the big studio release… which I haven’t seen… I’m gonna focus on a new doc opening in New York and L.A. on Friday, DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME (Sony Pictures Classics). Directed by A.J. Eaton and produced by Cameron Crowe, this movie surprised me first and foremost because I never really had much interest in Crosby Stills and Nash, so I wasn’t sure if I’d really care much to hear Crosby’s story. (Granted, one of my favorite bands, Yes, was hugely influenced by CSN.)

Much of the film is made up of interviews with Crosby conducted by Crowe, who first interviewed Crosby when he was a young journalist in the ‘70s. There are some real revelations in the film – similar to the recent Marianne and Leonard– including Crosby admitting that he got a number of girlfriends hooked on drugs. He also lost a girlfriend in a car accident that deeply affected him, although it’s also interesting to hear from some of his bandmates like Graham Nash, who claim that Crosby is not the nice guy some might perceive.

Whether or not you’re interested in Crosby and his life/career, Remember My Name is a fascinating look at a pivotal person from the ‘60s and earliest days of rock, another great doc from Crowe, who should really be doing more about the history of music.

I may have mentioned before that I have practically zero interest in Walt Disney Pictures’ THE LION KING, even though I am a long-time fan of director Jon Favreau’s work… except The Jungle Book, in which I was disappointed. Maybe it’s just because I was such a fan of the original animated movie and Rudyard Kipling’s book, but not having any immediately connection to the 1994 Disney animated movie, nothing has really gotten me excited to see this one.

You can actually read more about The Lion King over at The Beat.

Bleecker Street also hopes to expand Jesse Eisenberg’s dark comedy THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE nationwide into over 500 theaters, which seems a bit forward, considering that it didn’t fare nearly as well as A24’s The Farewell in limited release last weekend.

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the regular fare, on Wednesday, Trafalgar Releasing is the Trey Anastasio doc Between Me and My Mind in theaters across the nation on Wednesday night. Being a fan of Trey and Phish and having seen this at the Tribeca Film Festival, I can say that it’s a MUST-SEE for anyone who has ever enjoyed Trey’s vast output both with Phish and his solo groups. Besides showing Trey in the writing and production process for his latest solo album, it also shows him and the members of Phish preparing for the 2017 New Year’s Eve run at Madison Square Garden. Director Steven Cantor was given amazing access to Trey, as he also filmed a few personal conversations the singer/guitarist/songwriter has with his parents about their history together. I’m actually going to see it again tonight.. but if you’re in the New York area, go see it at the Alamo Drafthouse, where it’s hosted by the awesome Jordan Hoffman. (6:30pm show is already sold out but they’ve added a 9:20 showing.)

A couple other docs this weekend include Radu Jude’s Romanian dark comedy I Do Not Care If We Go down in History as Barbarians, which opens at the IFC Center. It’s about the dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who started a program of ethnic cleansing in the summer of 1941, something that’s recreated in present day by an idealistic theater director, causing controversy. It opens at the IFC Center on Friday.

Also opening at the IFC Center is Tilman Singer’s German horror film Luz (Screen Media), about a young cab driver who has been contending with a possessed woman who can endanger many lives. Lastly and also at the IFC Center, there’s Paddy Breachnach’s Rosie, the story of a mother trying to protect her homeless family, covering their struggle over 36 hours.

Joe Manganiello from Magic Mike and his wife Sofia Vergara from Modern Family star in Raymond De Felitta’s Bottom of the 9th (Saban Films) about a baseball player named Bobby Setano, who ends up in jail at the age of 19 just as his career is taking off. 20 years later, he is tryng to win back everything he lost in this movie from the director of the excellent City Island and Rob the Mob. It’s in select theaters, On Demand and digital platforms.

There are two new docs opening at the Metrograph Friday:

Martin Bell’s Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell is a follow-up to his 1984 film Streetwise (see “Repertory” below), this one following up on that film’s 14-year-old subject “Tiny” and what she’s been through since then, going from drug addiction to poverty, having given birth to ten children. There’s also Marie Losier’sCassandro, the Exotico! (Film Movement) looking at the 47-year-old Saul Armendariz aka Cassandro, the openly gay champion of the Mexican exotico wrestling circuit, which features competitors in drag. The film is shot entirely on 16mm.

I just want to draw special attention to New York’s Village East Cinemas, which really has turned itself around with the variety of films and programs it’s offering, partially to compete with some of the new and revitalized arthouses. This week, it has three new movies, beginning with At War (Cinema Libre Studios), the new film from French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man), once again teaming him with Vincent Lindon as Laurent Amédéo, the spokesman for a company that is going to shut down its factory, putting over a thousand employees out of work.

The Village East is also one of the theaters showing Aaron Harvey’s Into the Ashes (RLJEntertainment), starring Luke Grimes as former criminal Nick Brenner who believe he has escaped his past until his old crew shows up for the money he stole from them, taking Nick’s wife and putting him on a path for revenge.

I know very little Steve Barron’s Supervized except that it’s about four aging superheroes in an Irish retirement home and it stars the likes of Beau Bridges, Louis Gossett Jr., Tom Berenger and Fionnula Flanagan.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

This weekend at the IFC Center is the first-ever 51 Fest, honoring the “female majority on screen” by paying tribute to the women of the world with an amazing line-up of films. The fest opens at the SVA Theater on Thursday night with Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story and then continues at the IFC Center with the New York Premieres of Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding remake starring Julianne Moore, Paul Downs Colaizzo’s terrific Brittany Runs a Marathon (with a QnA hosted by my pal Ophira Eisenberg), Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’s doc For Sama and more. The fest will also host the World Premiere of Lisa Cholodenko’s episode of the Netflix series Unbelievable with Cholodenko and actors Kaitlyn Dever, Danielle Macdonald and Merritt Weaver appearing in person. In general, this seems like a strong new festival with lots of talent attending, so here’s hoping that this becomes a regular annual thing.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Premiering on Netflix Friday is Peter Sullivan’s suspense thriller SECRET OBSESSION, starring Brenda Song (The Social Network) as a newlywed who is brutally attacked at a rest stop leaving her with amnesia. As her husband (Mike Vogel) takes care of her at home, a detective (Dennis Haysbert) goes looking for her attacker who also might have kidnapped his daughter.

I’m more excited about the return of Jerry Seinfeld’s series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” with its new season, as it’s one of my favorite Netflix series by far.

REPERTORY

Although there aren’t a ton of limited releases this week, it’s an exciting time for repertory fans for reasons you’ll discover as you go through the entries below.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

To tie-in with the release of Tiny (see above), the Metrograph is also screening of a new restoration of Martin Bell’s 1984 film Streetwise, about the kids who would gather on downtown Seattle’s Pike Street. This weekend’sLate Nites at Metrograph is the movie musical classic, Alan Arkush’s 1979 movie Rock ‘n’ Roll High School starring the Ramones!Playtime: Family Matineesgoes with Disney’s 1979 film The Black Hole on 35mm, and you can bet I’ll be there for that.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

As we get closer to the release of Tarantino’s 9thfilm, his rep theater will continues its James Bond series with Thunderball as the Weds. matinee and then both Weds and Thurday night is a grindhouse TRIPLE FEATURE (!!!) of Curtis Hanson’s 1972 film Sweet Kill with 1973’s Soul Hustler (with Larry Bishop in person) and the 1971 film Sweet Saviour. The Friday/Saturday double feature is Mervyn Le Roy’s Gipsy (1962) with Sidney Pollack’s This Property is Condemned (1966), while Sunday and Monday is a Fabian double feature of Ride the Wild Surf (1964) and Thunder Alley (1967), the latter co-starring Annette Funicello. This weekend’s KIDDEE MATINE continues the Love Bug series with Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo from 1977. Tarantino’s own Django Unchained is the Friday midnight movie with something called I Love You, Alice b. Toklas (1968), starring Peter Sellers (!), on Saturday at midnight. Monday’s matinee is the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries, starring a VERY young Leonardo DiCaprio. Tuesday night’s official GRINDHOUSE triple feature is Joe Namath’s CC & Company(1970), along with two Jack Starrett films, The Losers from 1970 and Hollywood Man from 1976. I understand that many of the films being programmed are ones that had an influence on Tarantino’s upcoming film Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood, which hits American theaters across the country next week.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Not be outdone by the younger New York “upstart-house” theaters, Film Forum is kicking off a month-long Burt Lancaster seriesbeginning with a week-long 4k restoration of Robert Siodmak’s (1946) The Killers, starring Lancaster and Ava Gardner. The series will then continue with classics like the Sweet Smell of Success and From Here to Eternity starting Friday, July 26, so check back next week for more on this series. Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying (1957) will end Thursday to make room for above.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

On Wednesday, comedian Greg Proops screens the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryas part of his “Greg Proops Film Club.” The “Highballs and Screwballs” series continues Thursday with Humphrey Bogart’s Key Largo (1948) with The Palm Beach Story (1942). On Friday, the Egyptian does a “Mikhail Kalatozov double feature” of The Cranes are Flying (1957) and I Am Cuba (1964), Saturday afternoon is the latest in the “Style of Sin: Pre-Code Film with Kimberly Truhler” series with two starring Kay Francis, Girls about Town (1931) and Jewel Robbery (1933), both in 35mm, while Saturday night is a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 classic Stalker.

Just a reminder that the AERO is closed for the month of July for “repairs and upgrades” but will be back in August with its own entries in the “Highballs and Screwballs” series.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

I’m pretty excited about the second part of the Quad’s Fresh Meat: Giallo Restorations Part II, starting on Friday. I havent’ seen a single one of the movies but with titles like The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire and Strip Nude for Your Killer, I have to try to see some of these for sure.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

FilmLinc’s new summer series is This is Cinema Now: 21st Century Debuts, which is fairly self-explanatory but features fairly new films including Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy, screening in a double feature with Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Hawith Maren Ade’s The Forest for the Trees, Shane Caruth’s Primer with Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, and many more with many screening twice but a lot only screening once. Some of them are playing as two-for-one double features and if I wasn’t dealing with Comic-Con stuff, I’d totally go see the Damien Chazelle/Barry Jenkins double feature on Saturday night.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Friday, BAM begins a series called “Intimate Epics” which includes everything from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) to Hu Bo’s very recent Elephant Sitting Still to Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai (1954). It runs through the weekend until Tuesday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

On Friday, IFC Center will present a 60thAnniversary revival of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest in a new 4k restoration. Still no word on when it’s new series will begin but presumably soon.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The Astoria arthouse begins a retrospective called “Barbara Hammer, Superdyke” on Friday, which runs through Sunday, July 28, honoring the late filmmaker with a number of shorts series under the titles “Mediated Sensuality,” “Ecstatic Subjectivity,” “Hall of Mirrors” and more. I really don’t know anything about her films but you can learn more at the link above.

ROXY CINEMA# (NYC)

Weds. and Sunday, the Roxy shows a 35mm print of the 1964 thriller Marnie, while on Thursday, there’s a very rare screening of Roman Polanski’s 1967 dark comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday night’s midnight offering is Gaspar Noé’s Climaxfrom earlier in the year.. so not old enough to be considered “repertory,” huh?

Next week, it’s all about Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood! (Seeing it Monday and I’ll have a review next Tuesday.)

#TheLionKing DavidCrosbyRememberMyName Movies REviews Repertory

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