What are you seeing this weekend?

Just a reminder that three major titles open today

Elle
France's Oscar entry, directed by notorious provocateur Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Turkish Delight, Black Book, etcetera) features screen icon Isabelle Huppert in arguably the crowning role of her inimitable career as a video game designer chillingly obsessed with uncovering the identity of her rapist. Reviewed. Expect an Oscar nomination or (crossing fingers) two. Reviewed.
[Opens today in New York. Wednesday in Los Angeles]

Arrival
Denis Villeneuve's (Sicario, Enemy) awesome thinking person's sci-fi epic about a curiously immobile alien invasion. The aliens have arrived but what do they want hovering in 12 locations over our world? An expert linguist (Amy Adams, wonderful) is recruited to communicate with them in this superbly executed drama. Reviewed. It's also perfect for this moment for this movie.

Arrival opens this weekend. I can't imagine a better moment to go see a humanity affirming sci-fi movie about overcoming what divides us.

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) November 11, 2016

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Ang Lee's technically experimental adaptation of the political novel is about a soldier on leave from war paraded for the nation as a war hero. Joe Alwyn (as Billy Lynn) is a compelling debut actor and the film has curio value from this normally great director but the high frame rate technique MUST die a quick death: it doesn't look like cinema at all but like a cheap poorly filmed stage production. More thoughts.
[Opens today in New York and Los Angeles] 

Also Opening:
Wide: Almost Christmas a comedy starring Danny Glover, the Naomi Watts led thriller Shut-In; Limited: a 20th anniversary restoration of the lesbian classic The Watermelon Woman (NY only), three documentaries (Seasons, National Bird, The Anthropologist), and the Oscilloscope curiosity The Love Witch. Here's that trailer:

LOVE WITCH TRAILER from Anna Biller on Vimeo.

First Look at Luc Besson's "Valerian".

Chris here. With the events of this week, some cheesy intergalactic journey doesn't sound too bad if it means we get to escape our planet for a little while. Here for a quick distraction is next year's scifi saga from Luc Besson Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets:

Some quick thoughts:

• I can't quite decide if these visuals are exciting or ugly/boring. It's certainly energized, but still nothing we haven't seen before.
• Dane DeHaan is a strong young talent, but action movie material? Curious casting. But my goodness was he sultry in Kill Your Darlings, so maybe at best he won't be bland here.
• Speaking of casting, this romantic pairing is a bit icky considering they look like they could be siblings.
• This will come around the 20th anniversary of Besson's The Fifth Element. I'm not a fan, but Valerian might be a fun way to celebrate Element's milestone for the fanbase, especially as this appears to be chasing its vibe.
• ... but I do miss the Besson that gave us Leon: The Professional and La Femme Nikita.

Valerian opens on July 21. Thoughts?

Swing Tarzan Swing: Disney's 1999 Animated Take

We've reached the penultimate episode of our Tarzan series. Now sailing into Disney wilds...

by Nathaniel R

For over half a century in film and television storytellers didn't think Tarzan needed an origin plot but when the movies told it (Greystoke, 1984), it was as if everyone had always wanted to. Why not Disney then? Disney hadn't quite run out of classic fairytales to adapt by the mid-nineties but they were shifting their focus to boys. This was arguably due to their gargantuan back-to-back biggest-ever successes of Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994), two animated features that deviated from their princess focus. Enter Hercules and then Tarzan. Neither were girly fairytales but both were still firmly embedded in fantasy and heightened enough for musical numbers.

Sort of.

By the time Tarzan rolled into town, Disney executives had clearly begun to wonder if audiences were done with the musical part of their Animated Musicals because Tarzan is only a musical in the sense that non-diegetic adult contemp ear worms keep popping up. They arrive without warning, with all the subtlety of a slasher movie jump scare.

Click to read more ...

Noirvember Requests?

What are your three top noirs you'd love to see discussed this month? I mean besides the obvious choices like Gilda (a personal fav) and films we've discussed in the past few years already like Double Indemnity, Blood Simple, The Bigamist, and Woman in the Window.

Easy Access FYI:

• Netflix has a paltry selection of Noir but they are offering Dressed to Kill, Don't Bother to Knock, Laura, and House on Telegraph Hill

• Amazon Prime is streaming The Killer is Loose, The Man in the Attic, The Hitchhiker, Shoot to Kill, Scarlett Street, Dark Passage, Strange Woman, Fear in the Night, The Stranger, Port of New York, Strange Illusion, Whistle Stop and Woman on the Run

• The new FilmStruck service has several foreign titles mostly from Japan and France

Chicken Run for the Despondent Soul

by Daniel Crooke

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, it’s been a challenge not to hide under the covers and never come out. When fundamental civil liberties, minority rights, and the safety of the entire planet are on the line, the diverting promises of everyday distractions are a mixed bag; the stakes are high, the situation is dire, and change depends on every single American who believes in justice for all to keep their eyes open and their voices loud on the task at hand. Action demands itself. Everything else can feel a bit frivolous right now.

But for those who need a quick bit of movie fantasy with a hearty, hopeful dose of relevance, I would recommend clicking over to Netflix like I did last night to refamiliarize yourself with the crackling Aardman claymation caper Chicken Run - a story about a henhouse uprising of economically disadvantaged chickens taking their rights back from the human farmers who mean to exterminate them in the name of wealth concentration and boundless brand recognition.

Concerned fundamentally with the importance of political organization as a means of toppling inhumane powers that threaten freedom and liberty, Chicken Run is a model for the promises of civic engagement. The film's clucking characters escape the despair-cast shackles of its dead end world by tirelessly fighting the good fight against odds impossibly stacked against them. Their fearless leader Ginger carries the torch for the film’s fowl feminism, outsmarting the bloviating, dimwitted, and fraudulent men on the farm to shine a path through the darkness for her disenfranchised comrades. Indeed, it is only when the night falls into its pitchest black that Ginger and her team of nasty women band together with enough grit and goodwill to extinguish their enemy once and for all and seize their brighter tomorrow. Food for thought.