What to Watch: Late August is Kinda Mid
Reviews of "Golda," "Mutt," "The Hill," and more
More end of summer dog days in theaters, but Iām willing to take a trawl through some of the curiosities and contenders premiering in theaters this week. I should note, however, that your best viewing bet is probably to stay at home and stream Celine Songās āPast Livesā(ā ā ā ā), which is finally available on VOD and which is as of this moment (i.e., before the fall festival arrival of end-of-year awards bait) my pick for Best of 2023. I should also note that āPast Livesā is streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft, and Vudu at the premium price of $19.99 but that this is one case where itās worth paying full freight. I wrote about the film when I saw it at Sundance in January and again when it arrived in theaters in June, so youāre probably sick of me talking about it already ā no need to add to my glowing feelings about a very special experience.
The new release I really want to see is āBottoms,ā the sophomore feature from Emma Seligman, who gave us the hilariously utz-y comedy āShiva Babyā (2020). That movieās star, Rachel Sennott, is also in āBottoms,ā which is apparently about two high school lesbians (the other is played by Ayo Edebiri of āThe Bearā) who start a fight club so they can seduce cheerleaders. It looks to be disreputable in all the best ways. Unfortunately, the filmās distributor has been weirdly cagey with screenings or links for critics outside the NY/LA markets, which means that the movieās either a disaster or the marketing team doesnāt understand it. Given that itās Seligman, bet on the latter. āBottomsā will be arriving in Boston next week, by which time I should have caught up with it. The trailer is here. In its stead, I give you:
āGoldaā (ā ā 1/2, in theaters), which stars Dame Helen Mirren (above) as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and thus promises cognitive dissonance of an unusually high order. And it delivers during the opening scenes, as viewers may have to adjust their internal horizontal hold to adapt to a heavily made-up Mirren who sounds like Marge Simpson and looks alarmingly like Tommy Lee Jones in drag. But itās a committed and earnest performance that allows us to settle into it, except for one gruesome bit late in the going where Mirrenās face is digitally transposed onto Meirās head in archival footage. The movie, written by Nicholas Martin (āFlorence Foster Jenkinsā) and somewhat over-directed by Guy Nattiv, is modeled on bones similar to the 2017 Winston Churchill biopic āDarkest Hour,ā with a legendary leader guiding her country through an existential crisis from a series of war rooms packed with government officials. The crisis is the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which I knew little about and now know a great deal thanks to the movie: How Egypt and Syria made a double-fronted surprise attack that shouldnāt have been a surprise and how Meir shouldered the blame for the mistakes of others (including a Moshe Dayan who, in Rami Heubergerās performance, is a cowardly weenie whose response to the Syrian tank assault is essentially, āGame over, man!ā). So itās a war film told from a statewomanās point of view, which both works and doesnāt. The strategizing, arguing, and political backbiting make for juicy drama, but the choice to āseeā crucial battle sequences only through the headphones of Meir and her cabinet ministers as they listen in from the underground HQ in Tel Aviv is a choice that pays off once ā when the audio carnage carries an awful jolt ā and is increasingly dubious thereafter. Iām sure it was easy on the budget: Why film war scenes if you only have to hear them? But it only adds to the air of gimmickry in āGolda,ā and Iām enough of a cynic to snort at the deployment of a Leonard Cohen song over the closing credits as a parting act of camp. But there will be viewers who will take this movie to heart, and to them I say God speed rather than oy gevalt.
āMuttā (ā ā ā, in theaters) is 24 hours, more or less, in the life of a young trans man in Brooklyn ā hours so packed with events, microaggressions, and quotidian disasters as to test the audienceās patience as much as the main characterās. Still, itās rooted in the experiences of its maker, writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, and presumably those of its star, the tensely charismatic Lio Mehiel (above) ā like his character, FeƱa, a female-to-male transexual navigating an uncertain world not long after having top surgery. The movie is bracingly frank in acknowledging the complex crossroads of gender, body, and desire: FeƱa bumps into his pre-op boyfriend (Cole Doman) at a club and both find to their surprise that feelings donāt change even when bodies do. Lungulov-Klotz piles on the calamities and characters: FeƱaās runaway teen sister (MiMi Ryder), a judgmental Chilean dad (Alejandro Gojic), and an entire, bristling New York City of allies and potential enemies ā a scene where FeƱa tries to cash a check made out in his deadname is a little symphony of insult and erasure. āMuttā doesnāt really travel anywhere except in circles around its beleaguered heroās falling and rising sense of self-worth. But thatās enough, especially for audiences that need to see this movie but probably and sadly wonāt.
āThe Hillā (ā ā 1/2, in theaters) I can be wary of Christian āfaith-basedā cinema, especially when the specific goal is to preach to the converted or proselytize to the un-, but āThe Hillā is interesting, dramatically and thematically, because itās a movie whose faith is pretty evenly divided between the Lord and baseball and because the onscreen conflict is between a Bible-thumping patriarch (Dennis Quaid, neck veins a-throbbing) and his batting phenomenon son (Colin Ford). Itās the ābased on a true storyā story of Ricky Hill, who in the early 1970s pursued his dream of playing professional ball despite a degenerative spine disease that had his legs in braces from childhood. Everyone believes in the kid ā mom (Joelle Carter), older brother (Ryan Dinning), little sister (Carina Worm), sweet-faced love interest (Siena Bjornerud) ā with the exception of Pastor Dad, who disapproves of baseball cards (āthey sell the image of false idolsā) and thinks Godās plan for Ricky involves the cross rather than the diamond. Jeff Celentano directs āThe Hillā like a Sunday sermon version of āRudy,ā and while the movie has its cliches and missteps ā like a generically treacly score that never lets up and the Memaw fright wig theyāve stuck on poor Bonnie Bedelia, who plays the heroās feisty, God-fearinā grandma and who I hope got combat pay ā that central generational struggle is as old as the Bible (and āThe Jazz Singerā) and still dramatically compelling. Is the prodigal son actually a prodigy? Can a parent ever truly see their child? āThe Hillā hangs these themes on a scaffolding of Christian faith that is corny in ways both off-putting and honest, and it reaches back, consciously or not, to the baseball films of Hollywoodās earliest days, when Charles Ray became a star hitting homers despite a doubting dad in āThe Pinch Hitterā (1917).
Classic of the Week: āThe Oklahoma Kidā (1939, ā ā ā) ā Warner Bros. got tired of sticking James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in urban crime films, so they decided to stick them in a Western instead. A B-Western, when all is said and done, but with the Warnersā typically hard nose in matters of class tensions and whoās getting screwed (Native Americans) by whom (Tulsa land-rush barons). Mostly itās a hoot to see Jimmy and Bogey ā the latter still getting second-billed but soon to ascend to the A-list in 1941ās āMaltese Falconā and āHigh Sierraā ā wearing chaps and letting their hair down. It has been pointed out by others that we never see Bogart actually getting on a horse (he just approaches the beast, thereās a cut, and heās in the saddle), but we do get to hear Cagney sing āRock-a-Bye Babyā in Spanish, and thatās almost worth the price of admission in itself. (On Turner Classics Sunday afternoon at 12:45; also for rent at Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube.)
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Past Lives is a great rainy Friday night choice. Itās one of my favorite movies you have turned me on to.
Bottoms wasn't being screened at all in Boston, last I checked. (I do have a contact for a screener--let me know if you still need one.) But I saw it at a critic's screening in NYC. My review is being held for the Boston release date, but I can tell you it's...SOMETHING. It will be very divisive, and even the critics at my screening were unsure what to make of it. If Barbie triggered right-wing men, BOTTOMS will blow their heads clean off their pathetic bodies.