Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
The situation around Turner Classic Movies that we discussed here last week has continued to evolve, as Stephen Battaglio reported on the announcement that the creative side of the network will be under Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. Programming chief Charles Tabesh will remain at the channel, while filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese will have a formal role in curation and scheduling.
Michael Hiltzik took a step back on why TCM matters. "They are the keepers of the flame," said Foster Hirsch, a professor of film at Brooklyn College. "They're an enormous resource for scholars and writers and fans of all ages. To start tampering with the brand or to view it in terms of marketing and data exclusively is horrifying. It's an assault on our common culture."
Jean Eustache at last. With the rights issues that had long kept his work from being widely seen cleared up, the films of Jean Eustache are at last being made available, presented in a traveling program as "The Dirty Stories of Jean Eustache" that is playing locally at the American Cinematheque. While "The Mother and the Whore," Eustache's epic of post-'60s disillusionment starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun, is by far his best-known work, this is an even more rare chance to see films such as "My Little Loves" and "Numéro Zéro."
Regeneration remix. The Academy Museum's exhibition "Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971" will be closing in a few weeks, and the museum has launched a new film series to close things out, "Regeneration, Remixed." Among the films will be Jordan Peele's "Nope" on 70 millimeter, Charles Lane's "Sidewalk Stories" and an archival assembly of 1914's "Lime Kiln Club Field Day," the earliest surviving feature-length film with an all-Black cast, presented with a conversation with Ron Magliozzi, curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art to talk about the film's rediscovery and restoration.
LAT doc shorts. A new season of The Times Short Docs program has launched with "Merman," a portrait of Palm Springs resident André Chambers depicting his life as a queer Black man in Southern Calfornia. Directed by Sterling Hampton, the film recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
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'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'
Directed and co-written by James Mangold, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is the fifth adventure for the intrepid professor-archaeologist — and the first not directed by Steven Spielberg. Set mostly in 1969, "Dial" features Dr. Jones (Harrison Ford) in search of an artifact said to allow time travel, aided by his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Pheobe Waller-Bridge). They're in a race against a former Nazi scientist (Mads Mikkelsen). The film is in theaters now.
For The Times, Justin Chang wrote, "In a way, Indy has been swallowed up by not only the very action-comedy movie formula he helped normalize but also by the dispiriting, depersonalizing trends in 21st-century studio filmmaking. The greatness of 'Raiders' and parts of the original trilogy lay in qualities you rarely encounter in movies anymore: their jaunty exuberance, the arresting physicality of their action and the tactile creepiness of their practical effects. … But as a meditation on Indy's (and Ford's) mortality, on the passage of time and the plasticity of the motion-picture medium, ['Dial of Destiny' is] an unexpectedly, even accidentally resonant piece of work, especially as it gradually finds its footing in the final stretch and sprints toward a loopily audacious climax."
Mary McNamara interviewed Ford for 45 minutes in a Los Angeles hotel room during a chaotic press junket. Ford made no attempt to hide the fact he doesn't much like promoting his films and likes even less talking about himself. Nevertheless, he had a job to do. "I'm in it for the money, and I mean that in the best possible way." he said. "I want my films to succeed. For me and for all the people who work on them, even the people who put money in. But mostly I want the films to succeed for the audience. Because that is why we tell stories."
Mary also spoke to Karen Allen, who returns to her "Raiders" role as Marion Ravenwood. "I think [Lucas and Spielberg] created these indelible characters," Allen said. "This archaeologist who's off the beaten path — he knocks out a Nazi and when he tries to put on the uniform it's too small. It won the hearts of people. The stories are modern and kind of a throwback, and Marion is his partner from the beginning."
For the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, "It's hard to believe this or any other installment would have worked half as well without Ford, whose gruffly appealing, unthreatening (to women, importantly) masculine persona has always felt natural and unforced. No matter how outrageous Indy's trouble, Ford's persona and outwardly effortless charm — and his ability to drop that rakish smile for something darker, meaner, even threatening — have kept the character tethered to the real world of feelings and consequences. Lucas and Spielberg sketched a cartoon; Ford created a character. That character, or rather Ford, or really the two of them together are the main arguments for seeing 'Dial of Destiny,' which is as silly as you expect and not altogether as successful as you may hope."
For Vulture, Bilge Ebiri wrote, "Not unlike 'The Force Awakens' did with the original Star Wars, the 'Dial of Destiny' feels at times like a remix, offering variations on elements from earlier 'Indiana Jones' movies. … Still, the damn thing is fun. Mangold may not have the young Spielberg's musical flair for extravagant action choreography (who does?), but he is a tougher, leaner director, using a tighter frame and keeping his camera close. That may shortchange the escapist atmosphere and evocative exotica of the material (which is, after all, one of the pleasures of 'Indiana Jones' movies), but it does bring a ground-level immediacy to the action."
Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (Lucasfilm Ltd.)
'Revoir Paris'
Directed and written by Alice Winocour, "Revoir Paris" (also translated as "Paris Memories") won the French César award for its leading actress Virginie Efira. She plays Mia, a woman whose life is sent into turmoil after she survives a terrorist attack. Unsure of what truly happened to her that fateful night, she attempts to reconstruct the event by reaching out to fellow survivors. The film is in theaters now.
For The Times, Robert Abele wrote, "Such first-person empathy for the nuts and bolts of reestablishing a forever-changed life carries 'Revoir Paris' across its epiphanies and diversions, from the far-off look Mia slips into — a quietly forceful key to Efira's intelligent, on-the-go performance — to interludes narrated by other survivors about the closure they're seeking. … It's this journey that Winocour makes into something truly heart-rending: a story of the Paris hiding in plain sight, lives of struggle, indispensability and endurance that shouldn't need communal torment and headlines to spur others to regard in their fullness. It's in that soulful shift from repair's confusion to renewal's fullness where 'Revoir Paris' is most powerful, dramatizing what it can mean to outlive something unimaginable — and look at the world anew."
For rogerebert.com, Jourdain Searles wrote, "As Mia, Efira gives a subdued performance enhanced by her expressive face. … 'Revoir Paris' is a story about people thrown together, forever changed by their time together. In addition to its emotional resonance, the film highlights Paris' cultural and economic diversity as we watch Mia interact with people she may have never met. Despite the tragedy, 'Revoir Paris' is a hopeful film about the healing power of human connection and mutual comfort. It's the kind of movie that lingers in the mind long after the credits roll."
For Variety, Guy Lodge wrote, "It's a modest film with a heart very much on its torn sleeve, given force and ballast by another fine dramatic turn from the hard-working Virginie Efira. If centering the story on a fictitious tragedy frees Winocour from some of the moral and political challenges of dramatizing raw real-life wounds, 'Paris Memories' nonetheless feels thoughtfully shaped by recent history and France's response to it."
Virginie Efira in the film "Revoir Paris." (Stephanie Branchu / Music Box Films)
'Every Body'
The new documentary "Every Body" focuses on the intersex community (that's the "I" in LGBTQIA) — people born with characteristics of both male and female sex traits. Directed by Julie Cohen, the film follows three activists (Sean Saifa Wall, River Gallo and Alicia Roth Weigel) who were all born intersex, while also exploring the medical and scientific history of our understanding of this 2% of the population. The film is in theaters now.
For The Times, Katie Walsh wrote, "[The film] becomes a radical text, a crucial component in our evolving understanding of gender, and an important representation of the intersex experience. … The intersex movement is about living fully without fear, shame or trauma, to live life on one's own terms, and the brightness and vigor that Cohen applies to the tone follows the energy of the activists themselves. At the end, Cohen asks this trio to 'frolic' in a moment of much-needed, much-deserved and fully embodied joy that represents a little-seen aspect of intersex life and captures the spirit of what the leaders of this movement are fighting for in the next generations."
For the New York Times, Teo Bugbee wrote, "The film benefits from its choice of subjects, as Wall, Gallo and Weigel are all endearing and deeply informed. Their candor animates the unimaginative talking head interview footage from the director Julie Cohen ('RBG'). But beyond casting, Cohen's best directorial choice is to show examples from the history of intersex medical care."
For the Hollywood Reporter, Lovia Gyarkye wrote, "The film debunks common misconceptions about what it means to be intersex and covers the bitter history of intersex people being treated as 'freaks' and mislabeled as 'hermaphrodites' The analysis paints a painful portrait and illuminates the dehumanizing treatment faced by intersex people. … 'Every Body' is primarily an informative documentary, one that takes a cursory glance at many facets of the intersex awareness conversation to give viewers unfamiliar with the material a new perspective. Cohen and her team connect the dots for us, too, which helps us understand how solidarity with intersex people helps in the broader fight for bodily autonomy."
Intersex activists (from left) Sean Saifa Wall, River Gallo and Alicia Roth Weigel in the documentary "Every Body." (Focus Features)
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