Quentin Tarantino’s new film is finally here! In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the Pulp Fiction filmmaker re-creates the summer of ’69 with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as a TV actor and his stunt double, respectively, who run into Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), Roman Polanski, Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen and Charles Manson.
In conjunction with the release of QT’s ninth film, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle recently asked its members to rank the auteur’s work. I found the first three—Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown—to be easy, but the list gets less clear from there. My best guess is Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, Death Proof (due to the Kurt Russell effect), The Hateful Eight (see Death Proof), the two Kill Bill volumes (in order) and that sequence in Four Rooms. With nary a bust among them, the order of four through nine would likely shift with a new watch to refresh my memory. How would you rank them?
Have you seen The Last Black Man in San Francisco at Ciné yet? If not, do so before it is gone. Wild Rose will soon open at Ciné. Jessie Buckley stars in the musical drama as a single Glaswegian mom dreaming of making it big in Nashville. At Flicker, catch two wild foreign flicks on July 30. First, My Bloody Podcast presents Gaspar Noe’s latest, Climax. Like all the filmmaker’s work, Climax is polarizing. Stick around for I Saw the Devil, an extremely dark film from Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters)—you should not be disappointed by this violent, hunter-becomes-the-hunted revenge thriller.
The Deep Blue Sea Film Series at the Georgia Museum of Art continues with Wes Anderson’s 2004 film, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, on July 25. Per my original review: “Even if the seas traveled by Steve Zissou are cold and choppy, never allowing the audience to truly engage with the characters, this trip into the depths of man is worth it. Dramamine might not be a bad call, though.”
The Madison County Library celebrates the boy who lived with a Harry Potter Birthday Party on July 27 featuring snacks, Butterbeer and one of the movies. (I recommend Prisoner of Azkaban.) On July 29, bring your lunch to another Brown Bag Movie at the Oconee County Library. The Oglethorpe County Library’s Summer Reading Program continues with a screening of the 2005 family space adventure Zathura.
THE LION KING (PG) Too much devotion can be stifling. Disney’s latest effort to monetize nostalgia for its vast catalog holds too much reverence for its source material. Mufasa (v. James Earl Jones), king of the lions, presents his son to the pridelands. His jealous brother, Scar (v. Chiwetel Ejiofor), plots to steal the throne. Simba must complete a hero’s journey in order to set things right. Places where the story could have been tightened up are simply re-created, and no new narrative surprises await. The first viewing will feel like the fifth (or more) and ultimately dissatisfy, despite that safe warmth. The extremely impressive voice cast is left to generate all the energy, and no one but Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, as Timon and Pumbaa (MVPs of both versions), are up to the task.
The photorealistic animals look impressive, especially in the battle sequences between the lions and hyenas. However, this natural animation style lacks the depth of facial expression that hand-drawn animators can achieve. The surefire blockbuster looks as good as any annual Earth Day release from Disneynature, but impresses so little. Considering 1994’s The Lion King ushered in the modern era of feels-ridden animation perfected by Pixar, the utter lack of emotion provoked by its regal successor is far too common.
THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE (R) The new film from Riley Stearns (Faults) naturally finds itself compared to that king of cool, detached nihilism, Fight Club. Its protagonist, Casey (Jesse Eisenberg), sounds like a Chuck Palahniuk creation. His stilting delivery of even the most common phrases may not reach psychotic, but it certainly elevates him to abnormal. After a vicious mugging leaves him in the hospital, Casey seeks safety in karate lessons. Unfortunately, he finds Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), whose cult catechisms suck in the weak and searching until they cannot extricate themselves from the “night class.”
Self-assured filmmaking and assertive performances—can Nivola can finally get some wider recognition, please?—satirize the soul-crushing mundanity of daily life sometime in the mid-to-late ’90s. The violence and vulgarity required to take down toxic masculinity put off some of the more sensitive in the crowd—fewer viewers finished my screening than started it—but it is nothing anyone schooled in ’90s independent cinema, like the writer-director, cannot handle.
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