Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

If the Hollywood industrial complex will stealth-censor The French Connection, how long will it be before they remove the “problematic” parts from Midnight Cowboy? Don’t immediately dismiss the notion. After all, Popeye Doyle’s censored racist comments were intended as the opposite of an endorsement—and the French Connection won more Oscar’s than John Schlesinger’s X-rated best picture winner. Instead of pondering this question, Nancy Buirski’s interview subjects spend a lot of time talking about the Vietnam war and the cultural climate of the late 1960s in the awkwardly titled Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (it is also missing a serial comma), which opens tomorrow in New York.

According to the talking heads, the era of Midnight Cowboy was the best of times and the worst of times. The film faithfully captured the gritty, sleazy desperation of New York City when it was literally teetering on the brink of financial collapse. Yet, it was greenlighted at a time when the studios were giving talented young filmmakers virtual carte blanche, provided they work within reasonable budget constraints.

It was also a time when major studio films were including increasing explicit sexual content. Midnight Cowboy was also one of the first films to depict homosexuality, in dangerous underground encounters that make Jon Voigt’s Joe Buck character freak out in rather homophobic ways. Apparently, this was all made possible by the Vietnam protest movement, which Desperate Souls etc. etc. discusses almost as much as Schlesinger’s film. It also clearly pre-supposes the audience only shares the New Left’s perspective, showing no affinity for the experiences of veterans, their families, or the Vietnamese boat people, who desperately fled for their lives after the fall of Saigon.

Perhaps more “problematic” is the uncritical discussion of screenwriter Waldo Salt’s blacklisting during the McCarthy Era. The Blacklist was an ugly practice, yet we know with certainty from the Venona decryptions, the CPUSA (which Salt had joined) worked hand-and-glove with the KGB and NKVD. Are you happy Putin has threatened Ukraine with nuclear weapons? Then thank former CPUSA party members, like Harry Gold and Julius Rosenberg, who revealed the secrets of the atom bomb to Stalin.

Frankly, the only interesting sequences in Desperate Souls are Jon Voigt’s interview segments discussing his involvement with the counter-culture at the time, given his current standing as Hollywood’s most outspoken Trump supporter. You could say he always was a rebel.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror, from GKIDS

This portal fantasy world keeps bankers’ hours: nine to five, Japanese time. To get there, seven troubled middle-schoolers literally travel through the looking glass. What they find is more like a clubhouse than Narnia, but its rules still need to be respected in Keiichi Hara’s Lonely Castle in the Mirror, from GKIDS, which screens today and tomorrow nationwide.

Kokoro has almost entirely stopped attending school, after the bullying she faced drastically intensified, but she is too ashamed to explain it to her parents. Just when she really sinks into depression, “Ms. Wolf” pulls Kokoro through her mirror to a remote, fantastical castle, entirely surrounded by water, where six other confused middle schoolers are waiting.

They will have the run of the place until one of them finds a magic wish-granting key. Once they wish for their heart’s desire, all seven will lose their memories of the strange castle and of each other. Until then, they can spend as much time there as they like, as long as they leave by five. If they are caught after hours, they will be eaten by “the Wolf.”

Slowly, the seven become friends and discover the secrets they have in common. There always seem to be exceptions to their conclusions, but there are always good reasons for them. It is not entirely unfair to think of Lonely Castle as a Breakfast Club portal fantasy, but there is more to it than that. For one thing, it riffs on Little Red Riding Hood (Ms. Wolf sometimes even refers to the seven misfits as her “Riding Hoods”), much in the same way Belle riffed on Beauty & the Beast.

The Last Rider: The Greg LeMond Comeback Story

Cycling's greatest showpiece event has lost seven years of its history. With that in mind, Greg LeMond’s final 1990 Tour de France victory does not seem quite as long ago. That was the last time an American won the Tour, fair and square. However, LeMond’s 1989 Tour de France was more dramatic and more hard-fought. Alex Holmes chronicles LeMond’s career, placing special focus on the 1989 Tour de France in the documentary, The Last Rider, which opens this Friday in New York.

Greg LeMond was the great American cycling hope, at a time when most Americans hardly spared a thought for the sport. The young cyclist’s talent was so evident, he was recruited for the legendary Bernard Hinault’s team. After helping Hinault win his fifth Tour de France, LeMond was promised 1986 would be his turn. However, he was betrayed by his team, his coach, and his mentor. John Dower’s excellent documentary Slaying the Badger covered that race stage-by-stage, whereas Holmes gives the broad strokes, saving the fine detail for the 1989 Tour. In between, LeMond suffered a life-threatening hunting accident that temporarily shattered his body and his confidence.

Nobody expected LeMond to be in contention when he returned to the Tour de France in 1989. Most of the attention was on Pedro Delgado (one of the film’s other primary talking heads) and Laurent Fignon, who died in 2010. Each rider had his highs and lows. However, Fignon’s nasty behavior in the media does not exactly burnish his reputation.

Holmes previously featured Greg LeMond and his wife Kathy at great length in Lance Armstrong: Stop at Nothing, an expose of Armstrong’s criminal enterprise and his attempts to smear critics, like the LeMonds. Holmes’s two cycling docs and Dower’s film together provide a comprehensive portrait of LeMond. However, each film individually fully establishes the cyclist as a sympathetic underdog champion, of tremendous resilience and integrity. Obviously, he is a much more worthy role model than Armstrong ever was.

Surrounded

Mo Washington is part “Little Joe” Monahan (who was the inspiration for the Suzy Amis western, The Ballad of Little Jo) and part Mary Fields, the legendary black old west mail-carrier, who also famously toted a shotgun. Washington has passed for a man since she enlisted in the Buffalo Soldiers. She has ambitions to settle down and build a community, but killing keeps following her in Anthony Mandler’s Surrounded, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Washington has a gold claim and a dream, but every step of her journey to Colorado is fraught with peril. New Mexico will be where the sagebrush really hits the fan. Despite having a ticket, the racist shotgun-rider forces her to sit on back jump seat of the coach. Wheeler, a lawman passenger, is maybe a little sympathetic to “him,” as he assumes her to be, but only so to an extent.

Nevertheless, when the notorious Tommy Walsh Gang attacks the coach, Wheeler is happy to have Washington’s steady Remington on his side. With her help, they overcome the bandits and capture Walsh, but at a high cost. The coach is lost and perhaps Washington’s dreams with it. Bizarrely, Wheeler leaves Washington to guard Walsh, because holding a gun on a white guy, even bandit like Walsh, is such a comfortable place for him (her) to be in 1870 New Mexico. However, Walsh can see her for who she is. Thus begins a long night of verbal sparring.

Despite the High Plains Drifter-style hat, Letitia Wright cannot convincingly pass for a guy. Yet, weirdly, Surrounded makes that a virtue, emphasizing how “unseen” Washington moves through life. Walsh’s marginal status gives him a small degree of understanding, which makes his temptations and mind-games very effective drama.

LA Fire & Rescue, on NBC

Los Angeles is an unusually hard city for firefighters. The climate is dry, the winds frequently shift, and crime is sky-high. Station 16 in Watts typically responds to very different calls than Station 37 in Palmdale, surrounding by highly combustible desert brush. However, every station keeps incredibly busy. At least that provides a lot of material for the new reality series LA Fire & Rescue, co-executive produced by Dick Wolf, which premieres this Wednesday on NBC.

The format is recognizable. It is basically Cops, without cops. Of course, the firefighters work closely with the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department, but the series does its best to minimize the presence of lawmen. In this case, viewers also see a little bit of the firefighters’ personal lives and personalities. Captain Dan Olivas maybe gets the most screentime in the first three episodes (provided for review), because of the way he enjoys joshing with his station-mates at the 16—and getting joshed right back. It is also largely the same at home, with his big, loving family, including a grown son currently at the fire academy.

Throughout the first two episodes, viewers see how rampant crime makes their jobs so much more difficult. In the opener, “Best Job in the World,” Station 16 responds to a gas station fire, where a car involved in a high-speed police chase took out a live gas pump. Then, in the second episode, “Three Alarm,” the same station must tend to a man suffering head trauma resulting from a random attack with a lead pipe.

Station 16 certainly gets plenty of work, but Station 41 in Compton out-paces them for title of LA’s busiest station. That is why they have never been assigned a “boot” (probationary officer still completing training), until now. On her first shift, she responded to twenty-six calls. Fortunately, she has a conscientious mentor in Captain Scott Woods.

Watching LA Fire & Rescue certainly gives viewers a renewed appreciation for first responders. Usually, there is one major emergency teased throughout the show, supplemented by several serious, but less potentially catastrophic (from a civic perspective) calls to illustrate the department’s everyday life saving work.

Ridley, in The Epoch Times

The crime drama is decent, but Adrian Dunbar's jazzyish crooning is quite impressive in PBS's RIDLEY. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Mad Heidi

Switzerland has gone fascist. Maybe it was funded by some of those Swiss accounts looted during WWII, the last time the Swiss were showing some fascist tendencies. Cheese is the instrument of control for President (for life) Meili. It makes the Swiss people docile and stupid. Consumption is mandatory and lactose intolerance has been criminalized. However, Meili’s storm-troopers pick the wrong mountain lass to mess with in Johannes Hartmann & (“co-director”) Sandro Klopfstein’s Mad Heidi, which has a special nationwide Fathom Events screening this coming Wednesday.

It is still relatively peaceful up in the Swiss Alps, where the orphaned Heidi lives with her grandfather Alpohl, a former revolutionary, when she isn’t rolling in the hayloft with Goat Peter, a (not so lonely) goatherd and underground fromager. Unfortunately, there will be no mercy when Kommandant Knorr busts Goat Peter for illegal cheese trafficking. After his summary execution, she is sent to a women’s prison clearly inspired by nazisploitation movies, such as Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

Being behind bars with predatory body-building women will make Heidi stronger, instead of breaking her. However, she will need help from the spirits of Helvetian warriors to reach her full battle potential.

If you believe Troma represents the pinnacle of cinematic accomplishment than Mad Heidi will be your kind of movie. Yet, the truth is: it is a little too much like Hobo with a Shotgun. The gory mayhem is often more mean-spirited than humorous. It is the sort of mash-up than requires the ambience of a rowdy late-night theater audience to distract from its shortcomings (and the relentless cruelty it depicts). It certainly makes sense for Fathom to screen it as a special one-off, which is the only way anyone should consider seeing it.

Extraction 2, on Netflix

Apparently, if you want to kill Tyler Rake, you must drop him in a vat of molten steel, like Robert Patrick in T2. When we last saw Rake in the first film, he fell off a very large bridge in Bangladesh after getting riddled with bullets. However, the film established he could hold his breath under water for a very long time, so there’s that. Regardless, Rake is still alive, so best of luck to all the bad guys who try to kill him in Sam Hargrave’s Extraction 2, which premieres today on Netflix.

At least #2 acknowledges things really looked bad for Rake. As a result, he spends weeks in a coma before undergoing months of rehab. His merc boss Nik Khan just wants him to quietly retire so he can work on all the emotional issues that fueled his near-death wish, but that won’t be happening.

Instead, he agrees to rescue his estranged ex-wife’s sister, young niece, and annoying pre-teen nephew from the heckhole Georgian Republic prison, where they are forced to live with the druglord brother-in-law. Clearly, Davit Radiani still has the juice to demand such accommodations, despite being convicted of murdering an American DEA agent. Understandably, being incarnated with the abusive Radiani is slowly killing Ketevan and her children, but the worshipful Sandro is too brainwashed to see his father’s true nature, or that of his psychotic uncle Zurab. Regardless, Rake will bust them out anyway, whether Sandro likes it or not, with the reluctant help and considerable logistical support provided by Khan and her younger brother Yaz.

The first Extraction, also helmed by Hargrove and written by the Russo Brothers and graphic novelist Andre Parks, had plenty of action and considerable body-count, but #2 surpasses it in all ways. As fans would expect, Chris Hemsworth’s Rake is still quite a one-man killing machine.

However, the big news is how Iranian exile Golshifteh Farahani really comes into her own as a breakout action star. Khan was also part of the climactic shoot-out in #1, but she possibly caps as many bad guys in #2 as Rake does. She is in the thick of it, right from the start, but it is not to make any stilted statement. Khan and Rake are really partners in the on-screen action (technically, he works for her, but you get the point).

That said, Hemsworth still anchors the most brutal hand-to-hand beatdown, as Rake escorts Ketevan through a full-on prison riot, which even overshadows the complicated escape sequence it bleeds into, involving cars, helicopters, and a speeding train. #2 features an extended 21-minute long-take, but viewers will not really notice the technique, because the stunt work is so intense.

Seire, 21 Days of K-Horror

According to traditional Korean beliefs, it is best to keep newborn babies and their parents sequestered for the first twenty-one days, to prevent contamination from evil spirits and taboo-related bad vibes. If that sounds ridiculous, try arguing the point from the 13^th floor of a New York high-rise built within the last twenty years. Obviously, we humor some superstitions in the West. Woo-jin takes the same approach towards his wife Hae-min and her super-superstitious mother. However, when he attends his ex’s funeral against Hae-min’s wishes, he brings home something sinister in Park Kang’s Seire, which releases today on VOD.

Woo-jin is rather surprised to find himself here. One year prior, he broke up with his long-term girlfriend Se-young, because of rather profoundly differing relationship goals. Yet, after marrying Hae-min (rather quickly), here Woo-jin is—a new father. Then he gets a text announcing Se-young’s funeral.

Hae-min urgently argues against Woo-jin attending, but he feels dutybound to go. Much to his surprise, Se-young has, or rather had, a perfectly identical twin, Ye-young. It is incredibly awkward, for reasons that are largely his fault. When he gets home, strange things start happening. First their fruit takes a rotten turn. Soon, Hae-min insists Woo-jin engage in drastic folk remedies, but he is distracted by a suspicious chance encounter with Ye-young.

As horror films go, the slow burn of Seire is particularly slow, but the burn scorches deeply. This is an incredibly dark and moody film, because Park’s execution is unusually accomplished, especially for a feature debut. Credit should also go to Hwang Gyeong-hyeon’s forebodingly atmospheric cinematography.

The Blackening

Movies based on comedy sketches have a pretty spotty track-record. Remember films like It’s Pat and Night at the Roxbury? The trend continues. The misses out-number the hits in this slasher satire, but the shortage of kills really undermines the genre cred of Tim Story’s The Blackening, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

There is a cabin in the woods and there is an evil game, like Uncanny Annie, Game of Death, Ouija, Beyond the Gates, or whatever. The twist is this sinister board game has a blatantly racist theme. If you do not play you die. If you do play, you probably still die, but at least you play for some time. It did not work out so well in the prologue for Morgan and Shawn, the organizers of this weekend reunion for their old college friends. At first, they were psyched to see their Airbnb had a game room, but then the “Blackening” game sealed their fate.

Of course, they are nowhere to be found when the rest of the guests show up. Nevertheless, they all pick right back up where they left off, playing the same drinking games and busting the same chops. However, they are surprised to learn the strait-laced Clifton was also invited. They never really liked him, so when the game calls for a scapegoat, he is the one they chose.

It is not like they really wanted to play. Unfortunately, the unseen host has remote control over all the doors and windows. The Jigsaw-like figure is also holding one of their friends, so they really do not have much choice. Yet, for horror (ostensibly), the ultimate survival rate is bizarrely high.

Frankly, The Blackening is not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It wants the respect of The Menu or Us, but it is written at a level that is barely a step above the Scary Movie franchise. By far, the film’s best elements are the character of Clifton and Jermaine Fowler’s portrayal of the unexpected guest, both of which are so sharp, they largely subvert screenwriters Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins’ exhaustingly didactic messaging.

Jagged Mind, on Hulu

Thrillers about women escaping abusive relationships with men are often pitched with the term “toxic masculinity.” There will be no toxicity applied to this film, but poor Billie would probably be safer dating Archie Bunker than her current girlfriend, Alex. She has a bad feeling terrible things have happened in her life since they met, but she cannot put her finger on anything specific, beyond a few fragmentary visions in Kelley Kali’s Jagged Mind, which premieres today on Hulu.

Viewers will see Billie meet Alex in a bar, several times, for the first time. Evidently, she has a family history of neurological problems that cause cognitive issues, so she already had cause for medical concern. Unfortunately, Billie is starting to blackout and experience time in a non-linear fashion. Alex is determined to take care of her, but she also deliberately isolates Billie from her friends and support network.

Kali and screenwriter Allyson Morgan make it clear from the start that Alex is big, big trouble, but keep the secrets of what she is doing and how reasonably shrouded until the third act. Jagged Mind is either a light horror movie or a very dark thriller with fantastical elements, but it is different and surprisingly effective. It is also a rare film that explores the darkside of Haitian magic, without digging up any zombies.

Billie’s breakdowns and disjointed perception of reality are critically important, because they offer clues to her situation and build the tension. Fortunately, Kali realizes them quite adroitly. In fact, they are sufficiently sinister to tilt the film into horror territory for a lot of viewers.

Maggie Moore(s)

Anyone who happens to be named “Maggie Moore” will probably get some ribbing over this film during the next few days. Fortunately for them, it will then be largely forgotten. In the movie, two unfortunate women with that name happen to get murdered days apart. Like viewers, Police Chief Jordan Sanders believes it is too coincidental to be a coincidence in John Slattery’s Maggie Moore(s), which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

The first Maggie Moore we see die is actually Maggie Moore #2, in the awkward and unnecessary in media res prologue, before Slattery shows us Maggie Moore #1. She had the great misfortune to discover her husband Jay has unknowingly traded manila envelopes full of explicit under-age sexual material to Tommy T, in exchange for expired food to serve at his failing sub shop (maybe “Jared from Subway” is a customer). Right off the bat, you might have an inkling Slattery and screenwriter Paul Bernbaum have trouble finding the right vibe for their extremely dark material.

Even though Jay Moore apparently did not know what he was passing along, Maggie Moore #1 still understandably freaks, so Tommy T puts him in touch with Kosco, a deaf hired thug, to “handle” her. To Jay M’s partial “surprise,” he handles her permanently. Through a mildly odd chain of events, the newly widowed Moore happens to know there is another Maggie Moore in town, which gets him thinking. That will mean more work for Sanders, but at least this case introduces him to Maggie Moore #1’s next-door-neighbor, Rita Grace. She is a nosy divorcee. He is a sensitive widower. They could be perfect together, if neither of them sabotages it—but that’s unlikely.

Maggie Moore(s) (just try writing a review of this film without accidentally calling it Maggie May(s), six or eight times) could have been a slyly amusing film, but Bernbaum needed ten or twelve further drafts to iron out all the kinks. Instead, this film will leave viewers baffled, with a severe case of whiplash from the tonal shifts. One minute, it is a genial rom-com about middle-aged misfits taking a second chance at love. Then, suddenly, innocent people are getting viciously murdered over packets of illegal pornography.

Agatha Christie’s Criminal Games: The 1970’s, on MHz Choice

Few writers have been ripped-off as much as Agatha Christie. Seriously, how many And then There Were None clones have you seen? With that in mind, who could blame the Christie estate for cutting some licensing deals that are rather distantly related to her printed words? Swedish television developed a series based on Sven Hjerson, the meta creation of Hercule Poirot’s occasional companion, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver. Similarly, French TV has very loosely adapted some of Christie’s mysteries, with completely original characters in the ongoing series Agatha Christie’s Criminal Games. After seasons set in the 1930s and 1960s, the mysteries shift to the “Me Decade” when the ten-episode Agatha Christie’s Criminal Games: The 1970’s premieres today on MHz Choice.

In some ways, Captain Annie Greco is a feminist trailblazer, but she is also a tough cop, freshly assigned to city of Lille. Most of her insubordinate subordinate detectives are both sexist and incompetent, but Max Baretta has promise. His deductive instincts are not bad, but he has been banished to file room, because of his anger management issues.

Greco assigns Baretta as her partner, but his career resuscitation will come at a price. He must attend sessions with Rose Bellecour, the extremely fashionable psychologist they meet on their first case. Thanks to her parents’ cosmetic company, Bellecour has become the confidant of actress Anna Miller, whose co-star (and abusive ex) has just been murdered.

As the only episode of the season largely “inspired” by a particular Christie novel, Endless Night, it is not surprising the like-titled episode is one of the most successful of the 1970’s. It also has one of the best guest-starring turns from Romane Portail as Miller. Those who prefer to watch rather than read Dame Agatha might know the 1972 film with Britt Eklund and George Sanders. If so, they can surely guess the killer, but that means Flore Kosinetz and Helene Lombard rather faithfully adapted it for Criminal Games.

The other episodes, which are almost wholly original, are more hit or miss. However, it is worth noting “The Mice will Play” incorporates elements of The Mousetrap, with a mystery that hinges on an unwanted baby given up years prior. Poor Baretta also has a rare chance for healthy romance with Flore, an up-scale” “hospitality worker,” nicely played by Aude Legastelois.

Unfortunately, the bickering cats-and-dogs chemistry between Arthur Dupont and Chloe Chaudoye as Baretta and Bellecour gets very tiresome. Emillie Gavois-Kahn wears much better on viewers’ nerves over time as the no-nonsense Greco. However, her supposed obliviousness to the romantic interests of Jacques Blum, the coroner, also starts to wear thin. Furthermore, the hippy-dippiness of her new residence, the Nirvana Hotel, really gets shticky.

Scream of the Wolf

This film crew has made a horrible mistake with their props. They thought they were filming a vampire movie, so they are well-equipped with wooden stakes, but they will be stalked by a werewolf instead. As horror specialists, they should be able to pivot quickly, but their bickering and disorganization makes them easy prey in Dominic Brunt’s amusing werewolf comedy Scream of the Wolf, which releases tomorrow on VOD and DVD.

The shoot is almost over, but the alcoholic star, Oliver Lawrence, would hardly know it. He looks a lot like fellow vampire thesp Jonathan Frid, but his drunken eruptions into Shakespeare soliloquys also suggest a good bit of John Carradine too. Fiona the 1^st A.D. somewhat indulges him, because she is a fan—at least she was—but she and Derek, the director, constantly scramble to keep him away from the bottle. Two “journalists” from a horror magazine are expected for a set-visit, but they will not arrive in one piece. Instead, the crew stumbles over their severed limbs and a dying corpse.

Frankly, none of them should have been there. The production was supposed to vacate the rented manor before the full moon. Of course, the slimy producer wanted had to stretch out the shoot, to accommodate the publicity event. That kind of shameless, self-centered Hollywood-wannabe behavior constantly makes the situation worse for everyone.

You can tell from the opening credits Brunt and screenwriters Joel Ferrari and Pete Wild love a lot of the Hammer and Universal monster movies that you and I do. Admittedly, it starts a little slow, but the werewolf design is pretty cool. There is also a terrific extended stinger that explains the origin of the wolf.

James Fleet (from Bridgerton and Four Weddings and a Funeral) is very amusing as the hammy, drunken Lawrence. Fans will see a lot of their favorites in him, especially the aforementioned Carradine. Frankly, Fleet outshines just about everyone, but Stephen Mapes is also spectacularly sleazy as Peter, the dirtbag producer.

Secret in the Mountain, on MHz Choice

The picturesque Austrian village of Altaussee probably boasts the only working mine that also features an art exhibit. There is a good reason for that. During WWII, the salt mine served as the secret hiding place for art looted by the National Socialist regime. You might remember scenes of its liberation in George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. Screenwriter-director tells the story from the perspective of the miners in Secret of the Mountain, which premieres Tuesday on MHz Choice.

Sepp Rottenbacher keeps himself to himself, but not his childhood friend, Franz Mittenjager, who is widely known to supply food to the band of deserters encamped in the mountains. That secret is a little too open for his own safety, but his equally rebellious wife Leni would not have it any other way. Slowly but surely, the villagers are also becoming more defiant, as they receive news of the Axis’s military defeats.

The mines might not seem like a good place to store art, but the temperature and humidity in the deeper shafts were almost perfect. Their depth also provided protection from Allied bombing runs. Unfortunately, Hitler decided to destroy the Altaussee mine and all the art stored within, as part of his scorched earth strategy. Blowing up the art would also obliterate the village’s primary source of employment. Of course, the fanatical National Socialists do not care, but the catastrophic prospect finally shakes Rottenbacher out of his apathy.

Even though Secret in the Mountain was produced for Austrian television, but it is a high-quality period production, with some surprisingly sophisticated characterization. Unlike many “reluctant heroes,” who cannot hardly wait for their awakening of conscience, Rottenbacher’s change of heart is a bitter, hard-fought process. Likewise, the miners’ “courtship” of SS Officer Ernst Kaltenbrunner to countermand the Altaussee’s standing orders for destruction gives the film an ironic twist. However, it is worth noting Zerhau’s screenplay largely lets the mining village off the hook for collaboration, while short-changing the efforts of the American Monuments Men to secure the imperiled art beneath Altaussee.

Touristic Intents

Considering the Soviets repurposed concentration camps into gulags after WWII, it is hardly surprising East Germany found new uses for an uncompleted Nazi resort on the Baltic Sea. The nearly three-mile eight-building complex never had an explicitly military purpose while Hitler was in power, but the ideology guiding its construction and its subsequent use during the socialist regime make its current mixed-use (hotels, luxury condos, and a youth hostel) quite controversial. Mat Rappaport explores the structures’ history and significance in the documentary, Touristic Intents, which opens Monday in LA.

The “Colossus of Prora” was supposed to host up to 20,000 loyal vacationing Germans in equal egalitarian comfort. It was conceived by the National Socialist labor organization Strength Through Joy as a place where working-class German union members could vacation like the privileged bourgeoisie. It was never completely finished, but it served as temporary barracks for concentration camp support staff during the war. Although it would not have had high strategic value, it arguably still would have been a legitimate military target, had the Allies known of it.

Throughout the post-war years, the GDR regime put Prora to a variety of uses. Most notoriously, it became a camp for the conscientious objectors the Protestant Church had pressured the Communist state into excluding from armed service. One of the survivors, Stephan Schack, explains how the state systematically attempted to break him and his fellow dissenting conscripts while they were essentially imprisoned in Prora.

The best segments of Touristic Intents are those featuring Schack—by a country mile. The rest of the on-camera commentators lack his emotional resonance, but they are also quite reserved and mostly rather dull. Many of them are also largely in denial. Frankly, Strength Through Joy perfectly illustrates the socialism in National Socialism. It was literally a massive social welfare public works project spearheaded by a quasi-governmental union. Nevertheless, many talking heads argue it Strength Through Joy wasn’t really a union, because its dues were so high. And yet, so many people felt compelled to join.

The Crowded Room, on Apple TV+

When Daniel Keyes first wrote Flowers for Algernon, it was considered science fiction. Now, it is more like straight fiction, or maybe part of a very small subcategory, along with Oliver Sacks’ novelistic nonfiction. Simply knowing this series is “inspired by” one of Keyes’ “nonfiction novels” should alert viewers to the nature of its strictly embargoed secret (which is pretty easy to stumble across). Even if you do not know who Danny Sullivan is based on, it is clear he needs a lot of psychological help in creator-writer Akiva Goldsman’s 10-part The Crowded Room, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

If you really think about it, even the show’s title is a spoiler, but fine, we’ll keep humoring everyone. The extremely twitchy Sullivan has been arrested for his role in a shooting in Rockefeller Center, an unfortunately high-profile location, but his reputed accomplice and ambiguous girlfriend Ariana remains at-large. Based on evidence found at Sullivan’s Queens home, Matty Dunne invites Dr. Rya Goodman (whom he dated once and wouldn’t mind dating again) to examine him. He thought the squirrelly kid could be the career-making case study Goodman has been looking for and he might be right—or Sullivan might become the rabbit-hole that professionally derails her.

If you enjoy flashbacks, you will love the next nine episodes. Sullivan’s weird behavior and crimes are clearly a product of his traumatic past. However, proving that to a jury will be difficult, especially since Sullivan is unable or unwilling to admit what happened. Goodman even struggles to convince Sullivan’s public defender, Stan Camisa, a Vietnam veteran, who is self-medicating his own trauma.

Set in 1979, Crowded Room recreates period New York in all its grungy glory. The directors, especially executive producer Kornel Mundruczo (who helmed White God), nicely build and maintain the tension of Goodman’s sessions with Sullivan. The legal drama aspects of the series featuring Camisa and Goodman are also quite compelling. However, Goldman’s decision to shape the material into a psychological mystery-thriller was a mistake, because 95% of viewers will guess what is going on. Seriously, you already get it, right? If not, you will when you see how awkwardly certain characters interact.

If Goldman really wanted to present Crowded Room as a big twist thriller, he should have focused and concentrated the narrative into considerably fewer episodes. He just could not preserve a sense of mystery over ten installments.

Be that as it may, there are still some excellent performances in Crowded Room. Tom Holland shows tremendous and convincing range as Sullivan. Frankly, Christopher Abbott does some of his career-best work as Camisa. (It is also worth noting, with the cancelation of The Winchesters, Crowded Room is currently the only series dropping new episodes that features a Vietnam veteran as a major character.)

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster

Monsters are like bad movies. Nobody intentionally sets out to make either one, but they happen anyway. In this case, Vicaria’s intentions are good. She wants to resurrect her older brother Chris, who was killed far too young. Of course, playing God always turns out to be an act of dangerous hubris in films, as is indeed the case in Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, which opens today in theaters.

According to Vicaria, she isn’t just trying to bring Chris back to life. Her true spiration is to cure death. If she could cure taxes too, that would be great. Obviously, she is aware of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, because she labeled her lab journal “The Modern Prometheus.” Story also has seen a few Frankenstein films in his time, judging from the crackling electricity that powers her experiments and a pivotal line of third act dialogue that transparently echoes Bride of Frankenstein. Heck, maybe Vicaria’s surname is even Frankenstein. It is coyly never revealed, but we know it is unusual and sounds “German.”

Like every Frankenstein Monster, the re-animated Chris turns out to be far more violent and far less rational than Vicaria hoped. At least he has plenty of potential victims in their economically depressed neighborhood. There are the cops everybody hates and Kango’s drug gang, who prey on their human frailties. Sadly, Vicaria’s father has been one of their regular customers, since her mother was killed by a stray bullet.

In terms of style and tone, Angry is somewhat akin Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration. Without question, Story emphasizes the socio-economic circumstances of the characters, but it is not as didactic as you might fear. True, Vicaria’s best friend Aisha is all-in for woke Columbus rants, but they sound as counter-productive as Vicaria’s experiments turn out to be.

The Secret Kingdom, with Pangolins

If ever there was an animal in need of a hero, it would be the pangolin. Thanks to the black market in Mainland China (where their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are a staple of “Chinese medicine”), the scaly mammal remains one of the world’s most endangered animals. These pangolins residing in a subterranean Fraggle Rock-like fantasy world face an even graver peril. However, young Peter Drawmer just might be the hero their prophecies foretold in screenwriter-director Matt Drummond’s The Secret Kingdom, which opens tomorrow in New York.

According to the prologue fairy tale, the two worlds were once connected, but when the young, brilliant king died, they were split apart. Drawmer always lived in our world above, but when his family moved to his father’s drafty old ancestral home in the countryside, the fantasy world below starts calling him. Then, that night, a hole opens in his room, swallowing his bratty little sister Verity, so he reluctantly dives in after her.

Down below, the Pangolin oracle immediately hails Drawmer as the foretold king, but the Pangolin general is skeptical. Regardless, if Drawmer is their savior, he hasn’t come a minute too soon. The Pangolin soon find themselves under attack from the forces of darkness. Peter and Verity get cut off from the rest of the Pangolins, but they still have Pling, who is well-versed in the prophesies, as well as epic songs that serve as the pangolins’ maps for navigating their fantasy world.

The pangolins and many of the other fantastical creatures are surprisingly well-crafted. Secret Kingdom might be ripping off the Henson workshop’s greatest hits, but it does so surprisingly well. The fantasy quest, involving pieces of a puzzle Drawmer must assemble to restore the fantasy world’s internal clock, is serviceable enough. The problem is both Drawmer siblings are way too young (and way too passive) for a fantasy so transparently inspired by The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. They just aren’t right for the film.

Mary Harron’s Daliland

Salvador Dali was a self-described “anarchist, monarchist Catholic.” That is three strikes against him in today’s groupthinking world, but Mary Harron made a film about him anyway. He was, after all, the most recognizable artist of his time, or any other. Dali knew it too. His fame combined with his eccentricity and constant financial shortfalls makes him decidedly difficult to work with in Harron’s Daliland, which opens Friday in New York.

At this late stage of Dali’s career, he can practically sell anything with his signature on it, which is fortunate, because he and his wife Gala spend money like water. Frankly, he and his manager, Captain Moore, might even be complicit in flooding the market with dubious prints and lithographs. However, fresh-faced (and fictional) James Linton has yet to be so disillusioned by the art world (but it will come). Initially, he is thrilled when his gallerist boss “lends” him to Dali to assist the preparations for his upcoming show, which still includes painting eighty percent of it, or so.

Initially, Gala Dali was also hoping Linton would “assist” her too, but he wriggles out of those duties when she starts obsessively focusing on her latest “project,” Jeff Fenholt, the Broadway star of Jesus Christ Superstar, who would eventually become a musical televangelist. Ironically, Dali’s bemused pal Alice Cooper, who eventually starred in the live TV production of Superstar, also appears as a minor supporting character, reacting with a healthy degree of skepticism to the artist’s more over-the-top provocations. Of course, Linton thinks it is all quite charming, especially Ginesta, Dali’s waifish model-entourage member, until things really get to be too much.

In addition to the three strikes from Dali’s politics, Daliland carries a fourth strike thanks to Ezra Miller, who appears in flashbacks as the young Dali. Yet, ironically, the “troubled” thesp is arguably more convincing and compelling as the younger Dali, especially when recreating the artist’s fits of spasms and bouts of neuroses.

Admittedly, Sir Ben Kingsley is highly entertaining to watch chewing the scenery as the older incarnation of the artist-provocateur, but his performance is more about embracing and accentuating Dali’s eccentricities than exploring his inner psyche. Arguably, Miller is more successful at the latter, with far less screen-time.

Heroes of the Golden Mask

These superheroes are inspired by the Bronze Masks of Sanxingdui unearthed by archaeologists in Sichuan back in the late 80’s, but they have been upgraded to gold. Apparently, gold is more blingy and it presumably costs the same to animate. Charlie would also prefer gold, because of its higher re-sale value. Few people consider him a hero, least of all Charlie, but a hero-less mask chooses him anyway in Sean Patrick O’Reilly’s Heroes of the Golden Mask, which releases this Friday in VOD.

Li’s father was the leader of the Golden Mask quintet of heroes, until he died in battle against the evil super-villain Kunyi, who is determined to steal Sanxingdui’s mystical Jade Blade. The archer and her team-mates, including a Chinese Zodiac-shape-shifter, a hammer-wielding fish-person from Atlantis, and a telekinetic juggler, know Kunyi will be back, so Li must let her dad’s mask divine its next host. Bizarrely, it picks crime-infested contemporary Chicago as the place to find a new hero.

Charlie is an orphaned pick-pocket, who lives by his fingers and wits. He is a thief, but he is hardly the nastiest criminal in Chicago. Unfortunately, he owes money to the far worse Rizzo, whose voice was supplied by the late Christopher Plummer. When things get too hot for Charlie, Li provides a convenient escape, but he is reluctant to embrace his new heroic role.

Golden Mask holds the distinction of being Plummer’s final screen credit. Frankly, his familiar Transatlantic accent would seem like an odd choice for the Capone-like Rizzo, but his growling whisper does not sound completely out of place. Without a doubt, Ron Perlman’s voice is best cast as the sinister Kunyi, whereas Patton Oswalt is the most annoying as Aesop, the whining Atlantean.

The Good Asian, Graphic Novel

Asian detectives like Charlie Chan. Mr. Moto, and James Lee Wong were popular in the 1930s, but they have become controversial in retrospect, because they were portrayed by European actors (except Mr. Wong, played by Boris Karloff, who was of Indian heritage). Edison Hark is a Honolulu cop like Chan, but he is definitely cut from a different cloth, reflecting more contemporary sensibilities. His latest investigation takes him to San Francisco, but it hits really close to home for Hark in Pornsak Pichetshote’s graphic novel the Good Asian, with art by Alexandre Tefenkgi and Lee Loughridge, which releases today in a deluxe hardcover bind-up.

Hark did not really want to come to San Francisco, but his wealthy white adopted father Mason Carroway has fallen ill and may never recover. As a desperate final gesture, Hark’s adoptive brother Frankie requested his help finding their father’s possible lost love, Ivy Chen. She had a rather complicated history with the Carroway family. In addition to her ambiguous relationship with their father, Frankie might have also carried a torch for her too, but not Hark. He had a thing for Frankie’s sister, Victoria. She was usually away at boarding schools and rarely at home during their youth, so it wasn’t so weird—at least that is what they told themselves.

Hark deliberately references Chang Apana, the Honolulu cop who was the real-life inspiration for Charlie Chan. However, the hardboiled family dynamics have more of a Big Sleep vibe, with the search for Ivy Chen replacing that for Sean Regan. Yet, the attitude towards just about all forms of American authority in 1936 is more in keeping with Polanski’s Chinatown, but with a far greater understanding of the real Chinatown.

Somewhere Boy, on Hulu

Yes, Danny's father made a lot of mistakes, but at least he introduced his son to a lot of great classic films and music. Nothing too explicit, of course. To say Steve was an over-protective parent would be an understatement. Sadly, the reasons for his behavior are understandable, but that does not make them any less detrimental to Danny’s psychological development in writer-creator Pete (not Peter the Hobbit guy) Jackson’s eight-part Somewhere Boy, which premieres Wednesday on Hulu.

When he was still infant, Danny’s mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The negligent driver also killed a good part of Steve at the same time. Breaking ties with his sister Sue, Steve raised Danny in an isolated country cottage, brainwashing him to believe only dangerous monsters lived outside their house, since they were mostly likely the last people on Earth left alive.

Steve was definitely moody, but he tried be a loving father. Danny idolized him, believing he kept them alive through his hunting and foraging. He also enthusiastically adopted Steve’s tastes in films and music (including Hoagy Carmichael). Naturally, his father’s suicide hit Danny hard. Fortunately, Steve left word with Sue to come looking for Danny before he died.

Danny breaks Sue’s heart, for multiple reasons, but it is hard to communicate with the stunted and withdrawn teen. Her own teenaged son Aaron can hardly relate to Danny and he resents having to share his room with his weird new cousin. The more Danny hears about his dad, the more awkward Sue and Aaron feel around him, but at least he develops a goal. He is determined to find the “monster” who killed his mother and make him pay.

Although there is some menace surrounding Danny’s hunt for the hit-and-run driver, Somewhere Boy is even less of a thriller than Sean Penn’s vengeance-seeking character-study The Crossing Guard. Jackson is much more concerned with Danny and his prospects for meaningful healing. There is a lot of forgiveness in the series, both for Steve and Sue’s family, who struggle with Danny. It is easy to see why. Unfortunately, the scenes involving the guilty driver are a bit anti-climactic and frankly disappointing. Yet, the honesty of the extremely dysfunctional family drama largely outweighs such missteps.

Lewis Gribben is terrific as the twitchy, anti-social Danny, precisely because his performance is so tightly restrained and inwardly focused. Samuel Bottomley is also quite remarkable portraying the sullen Aaron, who starts to come out of his own emotional shell as he comes to understand how much damage life has done to Danny.

Margarethe 89 (short), from Cannes to FS

You can say GDR socialism was unifying, because it brought together the Catholic Church and punk rockers—against the oppressive Communist regime. In 1989, Margarethe’s lover, Heinrich, regularly played with his band in a dissident Church. Tragically, she could rarely attend, because she was confined to an East German mental hospital, for punitive rather than medical reasons. German-born French animator Lucas Malbrun revisits the final dark days of the GDR regime in the short film Magarethe 89, which premiered at Cannes’ Quizane des Cineastes 2023 (a.k.a. Directors Fortnight) and currently screens for free on Festivalscope’s consumer-facing site.

Even in the prison-like psychiatric hospital, there are inmate-patients willing to inform on their fellow prisoners. However, Margarethe is determined to be free, at least in her mind, but hopefully also in physical bodily terms too. At least Heinrich is at liberty to play with his band, but he too must attend weekly “check-ups,” if that is what they really are. Regardless, since it is 1989, viewers will know the regime’s days are numbered, but for some, the act of informing is a hard habit to break.

The Lazarus Project, on TNT

It is sort of like Groundhog Day all over again, but George Addo’s new colleagues are doing it deliberately, at least until they get things right. That is their job at the super-secret agency known as Lazarus. Whenever the civilized world faces an extinction level event, they rewind time back to the last July 1^st, so they can fix things. That causes a lot of confusion for Addo when he starts to remember what was rewound in creator-writer Joe Barton’s The Lazarus Project, which premieres tomorrow night on TNT.

At first, Addo was just a modestly hip British app developer on the brink of big-time financial success. He married his girlfriend Sarah Leigh, but as they settled down to live happily ever after, a virulent plague started killing everyone on the planet. Then Addo woke up and it was July 1^st, as if the last six months never happened.

Of course, Addo tries to warn the world of what is coming, but everyone assumes he is crazy—except the mysterious Archie. She tells him where to meet her if he remembers the next time it happens, which indeed it does. It turns out most Lazarus agents need to be dosed with their memory drug before they can recall past time resets. However, Addo is one of the few “mutants” that have developed the talent on their own. His new moody colleague Shiv Reddy is another.

Fortunately, Lazarus developed a sufficient vaccine for Covid-20, or whatever it was. (Anyone who was suspicious about how quickly the last Covid vaccine was developed—here’s your answer.) The bad news is a particularly massive nuclear bomb nicknamed “Big Boy” has been stolen. The worse news is the apparent involvement of Dennis Rebrov, a former Lazarus agent who turned against the agency. He is now determined to see the world burn, which sounds inexplicably nihilistic, but he has his reasons.

In fact, many of the character-establishing flashbacks are among the best scenes in Lazarus Project. Barton (whose screenwriting credits include Ritual and Encounter) has a knack for character-driven sf. He largely punts when it comes to credible scientific explanations, but so be it. He more than compensates for a lack of Doctor Who-worthy doublespeak with his one-darned-thing-after-another plot twists. Plus, he and the producers deserve credit for an additional, complicating villain they reveal in episode seven. Here’s a hint: they are committing genocide in Xinjiang.

Barton and series directors Marco Kreuzpaintner (episodes one to four), Laura Scrivano (five and six), and Akaash Meeda (seven and eight) keep viewers hooked, while radically shifting our responses to Addo. He is clearly the protagonist, but the demarcation between heroes and villains in Lazarus Project is a subtle and shifting line.

The Roundup: No Way Out

Forget Fast & Furious and Mission Impossible. The most reliable international action franchise is Don Lee’s “Beast Cop,” Ma Seok-do. He is more rock than The Rock, more diesel than Vin Diesel, and at least ten times the size of Tom Cruise. When his fists connect, people go flying. That happens a lot in Lee Sang-yong’s The Roundup: No Way Out, which opens today in New York.

The criminals of Seoul have nightmares of Ma, but his fellow cops often tease the good-natured giant. Joo Sung-cheol does not get to do that. Ma can tell his colleague is dirty, but he cannot prove it yet. Ma’s team started investigated the negligent murder of a woman who overdosed on “Hiper,” a new designer drug, which led to a Japanese Yakuza-controlled drug ring. The operation is secretly under Joo’s control and it has been skimming pills for extracurricular sales.

Having figured out their books do not balance, the Yakuza has sent Ricky the enforcer to teach Joo and his gang a lesson. It is a really bad time for Ma to start sniffing around, especially when his supply of pills goes missing. However, he profoundly underestimates the humble Ma. Their resulting cat-and-mouse game is a bit Columbo-like, but physically, it is much rougher.

The great joy of these films is watching Don Lee (a.k.a. Ma Dong-seok) punch, pile-drive, and power-slap his way to the truth. Lee has a big, “happy warrior” screen persona that is even more entertaining than Schwarzenegger in his 1980’s prime. The Ma-Beast Cop films are perfect vehicles for his size and chops.

Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio

According to reports, Padre Pio (a.k.a. St. Pio of Pietrelcina) exhibited the stigmata, healed the sick, bi-located, and faced multiple investigations from the Vatican that were intended to discredit him. However, none of those things are in this film, because why would they interest Abel Ferrara? Instead, viewers will witness many of the future saint’s long dark nights of the soul. If you thought he was tortured and tormented before, wait till you see him get the Abel Ferrara-treatment in Padre Pio, which opens tomorrow in New York.

WWI has ended and the men of San Giovanni Rotondo are making their triumphant homecoming—but not all of them. This is the first example of how capricious and unfair fate can be to the villagers. After the armistice, the land-owners expect life to return to normal, but socialist rabble-rousers are organizing to defeat the elite’s hand-picked candidate for mayor. Where is Padre Pio in all this? Back at the monastery, wrestling with the Devil and his personal demons.

Is that disconnection Ferrara’s whole point? Is this a statement on the Church’s divorce from average people’s struggle to survive. That is certainly a valid interpretation, but it feels somewhat at odds with the genuine (if somewhat eccentric) Catholic spirituality of his best religiously themed film, Mary.

Even by Ferrara’s raggedy standards, Padre Pio is a rather disjointed film. There are moments of brilliant cinema, such as opening scene of the soldiers’ homecoming. You can see Ferrara’s operatic fervor in all the secular passion play sequences. However, whenever Padre Pio rages against the darkness, you half expect Shia Labeouf to start baring his bottom, like Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. Evidently, Ferrara was struck by the coincidence Padre Pio started experiencing the stigmata around the time of the San Giovanni Rotondo massacre, but the connection he makes in his mind is not reflected on screen.

Ferrara also picked a heck of a time to stop working with Willem Dafoe. Labeouf makes a poor substitute, even though it was Dafoe who recommended him to Ferrara. There are some nice performances in Padre Pio, especially Cristina Chiriac, as a recent war widow who refuses to grieve, and Salvatore Ruocco as the veteran, whose advances she spurns, because he works as a foreman for the town’s noble family. However, Labeouf just cannot find the right key or pitch for Padre Pio, which is a big problem, since the film is ostensibly about him.