The latest film releases include Sinners, The Wedding Banquet, The Shrouds, and The President's Wife. Weighing in are Alonso Duralde and Dave White, film critics and co-hosts of the movie podcast Linoleum Knife.
Sinners
Michael B. Jordan plays twins who return to their hometown in the 1930s South to find supernatural monsters mixed in with the human monsters of Jim Crow segregation. Ryan Coogler (Creed, Black Panther) is the director and writer.
Duralde: “This is a movie that is about music and its power, and yes, it does take a darker, more supernatural turn, but it's in no hurry to get there. And I think that audiences that are patient with that and aren't expecting an immediate frenzy of blood and guts will luxuriate in getting to know these characters. … I was riveted from start to finish, and [Coogler] shot it on film in IMAX 65 so it is gorgeous to look at. And if you can see it in IMAX, you should. And in fact, in Los Angeles, you have the option to see it in IMAX 70, where they're actually projecting an IMAX film print, that's at City Walk. But however you see this movie, it's thrilling and fun and … evocative of the period, but at the same time saying a lot about the 20th century from a larger scale, in terms of the music, in terms of the Black experience in America. This is one of the best films of the year so far.”
White: “One of the themes is who is your friend and who is dangerous. Sometimes you don't know when they're staring you right in the face. But all of these contradictory elements come together, and they erupt like a volcano. … All of these creatures are metaphors for something. … Stick around until the very, very end, even past closing credits, so that you can talk with your viewing companions about what it all means. … I'll be watching this again.”
The Wedding Banquet
A gay man gives his lesbian friend in-vitro fertilization treatments in exchange for a green card. The cast includes Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie-Tran, Han Gi-Chan, and Joan Chen. Directed by Andrew Ahn, this is an English remake of a 1993 Ang Lee film.
White: “I'm very old, and I'm from the 90s, and I remember the new queer cinema and … we were making movies about us, for us. And then the movies rolled on through the 90s, and they started making movies about us for straight people. … I mean, I enjoyed the original Wedding Banquet … where it's our job to trick the straight people. … I love tricking straight people. It's fun, and they are gullible. But I didn't get that angry energy or the cinematic invention that I got from the first wave of new queer cinema. It got devoured by sitcom setups and farce. Now this one, this new version, is structured very much like its predecessor as a farce. It's full of sitcom possibilities, but it doesn't indulge them in those very obvious ways.
… Here, [Ahn] refuses to set up the stakes with outsized, unrealistic characters or situations. There's no comedy histrionics going on. There are only characters here who are sincerely trying to do what's best for each other. So it's not really a comedy. It has comedic moments, but it's not what you think it might be going in. It's a very warm, kind-hearted family drama about how people take care of each other, and what the world needs now, etc.”
Duralde: “Ahn is one of our great humanist filmmakers. He really loves his characters and understands them, and allows us to understand them as well. ... We think we know what these women are about. We think we know what they're going to impose on the story, but we don't, because they are people, and they are multi-layered and rich, and the movie is multi-layered and rich. And I've been watching Andrew Ahn since he was making short films at Outfest, where I used to work, and it's always exciting to see him progress as a filmmaker. It is sweet and moving, but also realistic about just human beings and their interactions. It's a great movie.”
The Shrouds
An entrepreneur invents scanning technology that lets him monitor the decomposition of his dead wife in real time. Director David Cronenberg’s wife died of cancer in 2017, and he says this is his most personal movie. The cast includes Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce.
White: “Vincent Cassel … he's invented … a coffin cam. … It is really all part of a package of a very sleek, cold, mournful, exploration of grief and desire and fear and … the limits of holding on to the life of a person that you loved; and then, of course, sex … and the betrayal of our bodies. … It's a beautifully dark film color palette that suggests everything the script refuses to explain. … The director of photography provides some really stunning low-light imagery. … [Cronenberg’s] obsessions become yours for the duration of the film, and when it's over, you wonder if you've just experienced a nightmare that you should shake off, or one that you … might keep thinking about, one that's going to embed itself into your brain forever.”
Duralde: “This is, I think, a movie that sticks in your craw and is literally haunting. … It's not going to win over people who were not already down for what Cronenberg does. … He is continuing to branch out into his obsessions and into his artistic touch points in a way that is really exciting to see in a filmmaker of his age.”
The President's Wife
Catherine Deneuve, 81, plays Bernadette Chirac, wife of French President Jacques Chirac. This is from director Lea Domenach.
Duralde: “This movie is about [Bernadette Chirac] strategizing a way to outfox her husband and her daughter, and to find her own voice and to become a beloved figure in France. Does she make compromises along the way that sell out her convictions and even members of her family? Yes. But does being on TV all the time mean that Karl Lagerfeld shows up so that she won't be wearing last year's Chanel? Also yes.”
White: “The film is genuinely, really just about this woman and the force of her personal drive. She's still alive. She's 91 years old this year. It is also explicitly docu-fiction, they say that right upfront. In fact, a choir sings the narration. This is a comedy, and one extremely loosely based on reality. … We don't deserve Catherine Deneuve and all that she has given to cinema. She delivers a really wonderful low-key, often deadpan, comic presence here. … You see this film, really, for perhaps no other reason than to enjoy being in her company for a couple hours.”