While most of the film industry is fighting to get their content in front of as many eyes as possible, one filmmaker is taking the scarcity model to heart. Darren Aronofsky, whose last feature was the one-location drama The Whale, is putting the finishing touches on his next film, Postcard from Earth, which will only be available to view in one theater on Earth.

The venue in question is MSG Sphere, set to open in Las Vegas this fall and feature an immersive screening experience, along with concerts and residencies. Featuring a 16K LED screen and a beamforming spatial audio system––both the largest of their kind on the planet––the 160K square foot venue also features 4D experiences with haptic seats and environmental effects, and can house 10,000-20,000 people depending on the set-up.

As for Aronofsky’s film, it was shot by longtime collaborator Matthew Libatique as well as Andrew Shulkin, who operated the Big Sky camera. “The single-lens camera has a 316-megapixel, 3-inch x 3-inch HDR image sensor that Sphere Studios says can capture 18K x 18K images up to 120 frames per second,” THR notes. There’s no word yet on how long Aronofsky’s new film will run as it’s still in post-production, but showtimes are listed at 2.5 hours apart so we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the 1.5-hour range.

“I see SPHERE as a great opportunity to pluck people from the bling and thrum of the Vegas strip in all its human constructed madness and immerse them as fully as possible in the wonder, awe, and beauty of the natural world. Postcard from Earth is a sci-fi journey deep into our future as our descendants reflect on our shared home,” said Aronofsky. “At its best, cinema is an immersive medium that transports the audience out of their regular life, whether that’s into fantasy and escapism, another place and time, or another person’s subjective experience. The Sphere is an attempt to dial up that immersion.”

A rendering of the MSG Sphere.

He added, “Every day we’ve taken out the camera we’ve gotten better at getting the best possible shots. It’s a learning process because the technology is new. And it’s the same with post. Delivering a half-petabyte movie––that’s 500,000 gigabytes––that utilizes more than 160,000 speakers is mind boggling. But honestly, every film is always a learning experience. You are always in a process discovering the language of the film and unearthing the story using the tools you’ve got at hand. Here it’s about how to make the beauty and fragility of our planet feel as potent as possible. The tools might be a little different on this film, but the task is the same.”

“Postcard actually has narrative elements as well documentary ones,” Aronofsky concluded. “We designed it to be as effective as possible to communicate the message we wanted to deliver in an emotional way, so it’s less about genre than about the audience experience.”

Postcard from Earth opens on October 6 at Las Vegas’ The Sphere. Tickets are now on sale.

Check out a behind the scenes look below.

The post Darren Aronofsky’s Next Film Can Only Be Seen in One Theater first appeared on The Film Stage.

MUBI has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including the exclusive streaming premiere of Lars von Trier’s The Idiots in a new 4K restoration, Céline Devaux’s anti-romcom Everybody Loves Jeanne, and Tyler Taormina’s Happer’s Comet.

Additional selections include three films by Wong Kar Wai, a Robert Altman double feature, four works by Jacques Rivette, plus shorts by Mia Hansen-Løve and Yorgos Lanthimos.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

July 1 – Synecdoche, New York, directed by Charlie Kaufman
July 2 – 2046, directed by Wong Kar Wai | As Time Goes By: Three by Wong Kar Wai
July 3 – The Exiles, directed by Kent MacKenzie
July 4 – Ivansxtc, directed by Bernard Rose
July 5 – Un Pur Esprit, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve | Short Films Big Names
July 6 – Contemporary Color, directed by Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross | Turn It Up: Music on Film
July 7 – The Idiots, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier
July 8 – Ashes of Time Redux, directed by Wong Kar Wai | As Time Goes By: Three by Wong Kar Wai
July 9 – California Split, directed by Robert Altman | Robert Altman: A Double Bill
July 10 – Kansas City, directed by Robert Altman | Robert Altman: A Double Bill
July 11 – Gang of Four, directed by Jacques Rivette | Jacques Rivette 
July 12 – Meet Doug, directed by Théo Jollet | Brief Encounters
July 13 – Lady of Burlesque, directed by William A. Wellman
July 14 – Buffalo ’66, directed by Vincent Gallo
July 15 – The Grandmaster, directed by Wong Kar Wai | As Time Goes By: Three by Wong Kar Wai
July 16 – ‘71,  directed by Yann Demange
July 17 – Keoma, directed by Enzo G. Castellari
July 18 – Happer’s Comet, directed by Tyler Taormina
July 19 – Il buco, directed by Michelangelo Frammartino
July 20 – La Belle Noiseuse, directed by Jacques Rivette | Jacques Rivette
July 21 – Twister, directed by Michael Almereyda
July 22 – Kinetta, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
July 23 – Pumping Iron, directed by George Butler, Robert Fiore | The Unusual Subjects
July 24 – Joan the Maid, Part 1: The Battles, directed by Jacques Rivette | Jacques Rivette 
July 25 – Joan the Maid, Part 2: The Prisons, directed by Jacques Rivette | Jacques Rivette
July 26 – Beats, directed by Brian Welsh | Turn It Up: Music on Film
July 27 – Everybody Loves Jeanne, directed by Céline Devaux | Debuts
July 28 – Sex and Lucía, directed by Julio Medem
July 29 – Duet For Cannibals, directed by Susan Sontag
July 30 – The Ballad of Narayama, directed by Shôhei Imamura | Shôhei Imamura: A Double Bill
July 31 – Black Rain, directed by Shôhei Imamura | Shôhei Imamura: A Double Bill

The post MUBI Unveils July 2023 Lineup first appeared on The Film Stage.

It was just after Thanksgiving last year that we received the exciting news that Paul Thomas Anderson––who turns 53 today––was set to embark on his tenth narrative feature this summer. While a few casting call details provided insight into what we may expect, the project has otherwise been shrouded in secrecy as expected, despite some baseless rumors he could be adapting Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. While production has been delayed due to the WGA strike, we have our first notable update in some time.

Buried in a piece on the ongoing battle to save TCM from David Zaslav’s profit-hungry, anti-art ethos––recently slashing about 70 jobs at TCM, cutting the staff from 90 to 20, yet still ludicrously promises not much will change at the channel––IndieWire‘s Eric Kohn reports that Paul Thomas Anderson is set to reteam with Warner Bros. on his next project. Last working with the studio a decade ago for Inherent Vice (still his best film, as I discussed at length), the partnership makes sense as Michael De Luca, the new-ish head of Warner Bros. film group, has a long history with the director, backing Licorice Pizza when he was with MGM and working on Boogie Nights and Magnolia when he was at New Line.

As for any more details, Kohn only mentions the long-gestating rumors of Joaquin Phoenix, Viggo Mortensen, and Regina Hall being attached to PTA’s film. They can be added to a rumored list that at various points included Leonardo DiCaprio, Rachael Taylor, Taylour Paige, Vicky Krieps, Jack Champion, and Harriet Sansom Harris. Per usual, don’t expect any official confirmations until cameras start to roll and set pics arrive. In the meantime it’s nice to know he has the backing of a major studio, including one who did a stellar marketing job attempting to sell the PTA film that probably least appeals to a general audience.

The post A Decade After Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson to Reteam with Warner Bros. for Next Film first appeared on The Film Stage.

Who needs summer blockbusters when there are so many gripping new and recent books related to the world of cinema? This column includes books highlighting creative heavyweights with new projects on the way, like Paul Thomas Anderson and Roman Polanski, and titans who have left us, like Abbas Kiarostami and Elizabeth Taylor. Other releases swim in the bloody waters of giallo, examine African American westerns, and offer reflections on horror cinema from queer and trans writers. 

One thing is certain––unlike Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, Fast X, and The Flash––everything here is worth your time and money. 

The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha by Ethan Warren (Wallflower Press)

While there have been fine books exploring the work of Paul Thomas Anderson (such as Adam Nayman’s Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks) Ethan Warren’s American Apocrypha stands as an important accounting of PTA’s energy and influence. Timing is one element. The book’s publication in 2023 means it includes Licorice Pizza, along with every Anderson music video to date. Indeed, while the entirety of the text is smart and compelling, it is the analysis of Pizza that most resonates. “There may be tangible movie cameras in Anderson’s ninth film, wielded by young filmmakers reminiscent of the director’s own onetime makeshift crews, but the more evocative ones may be the invisible cameras that Rex Blau summons as he prepares to direct a late-night motorcycle jump,” Warren writes. “All the world’s a soundstage for the born-and-bred auteur, and all the men and women merely extras.”

It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese (The Feminist Press)

The contemporary queer and trans writers who have contributed to It Came From the Closet are disarmingly perceptive. Films like Halloween and The Blair Witch Project are analyzed with wit and intelligence, but just as involving as the analysis is the personality each writer brings to the table. Consider Addie Tsai’s “Twin/Skin,” a thoughtful consideration of Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. “To live in the world as a twin––a doubled body, a mirrored self––is to also live with others’ misperception that you’re somehow interchangeable,” Tsai writes, documenting a deeply personal connection with the film. This essay is, in fact, almost a short story, and one with an ending that packs a mighty punch. It is one highlight from a collection of standouts. 

Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad edited by Matthew Edwards and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (University Press of Mississippi)

It is appropriate that Bloodstained Narratives, an appreciation of the giallo––which means “yellow” in Italian––film cycle, spends significant time on the films of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. However, the essays included here also study the work of directors such as Jess Franco and Romano Scavolini, and stars like Barbara Bouchet. The sharp, passionate writing in Bloodstained Narratives highlights the genre’s connections to current cinema and shows the debt many writer-directors owe to the blood-drenched masterpieces of Italy. “The giallo film, indeed, has been with us since its (supposedly) demise through the 1980s,” explain Edwards and Pagnoni Berns. “It has changed clothes, but remained a faithful companion to weird cinema. It has been transformed into other genres, into other film cycles. But the heart remains ‘yellow.’”

Return of the Jedi: Unauthorized Timeline 1976-2023 by Justin Berger and Jamie Benning (Anchorhead Publishing)

One of my earliest filmgoing memories is seeing Return of the Jedi during its opening weekend in 1983. (This gives you some idea of my advancing age.) Therefore, the third film of the original Star Wars trilogy has always had a special place in my heart. I am, then, the perfect audience for Return of the Jedi: Unauthorized Timeline 1976-2023, a wildly entertaining journey through every element of the film’s pre-production, production, release, and legacy. Authors Justin Berger (who authored an Empire Strikes Back timeline book in 2021) and Jamie Benning (of the “Filmumentaries” podcast) understand that for fans, the minutiae is a joy to behold. And there is *plenty* of minutiae in Timeline. Examples: “February 11th, 1982: Salacious Crumb chewing on C-3PO’s eye is filmed” and “November 22nd, 1982: ‘Black Friday.’ George Lucas throws out nearly 100 FX shots and four months of VFX work. [VFX Supervisor] Ken Ralston goes out and gets drunk with most of the FX crew.”

Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western by Mia Mask (University of Illinois Press)

Netflix’s The Harder They Fall is the most recent African American Western, but as Black Rodeo explains, the first of these dates back to the “early rodeo actualities” of the 1920s. Author Mia Mask’s book, she writes, “seeks to pose questions regarding Black masculinity on the frontier.” It is a unique take on a key genre of cinema. One of the most profound sections examines John Singleton’s underrated Rosewood, a film Mask believes “seeks to make cinematic reparations by relaying the story of the Rosewood massacre and by offering up a Western-style hero for public consumption.” 

Abbas Kiarostami: Interviews edited by Monika Raesch (University Press of Mississippi)

The world of cinema is not the same without Abbas Kiarostami, a filmmaker whose later work (Certified Copy, Like Someone in Love) was every bit as provocative as classics like Close-Up and Taste of Cherry. As evident in Abbas Kiarostami: Interviews, which includes conversations from 1991 to 2016, he was also eminently quotable. Consider this comment, from a 2011 chat regarding Certified Copy, in which he explains that the main male character was originally earmarked for Robert De Niro: “I sent the script to Martin Scorsese, asking him to please forward it to De Niro. First, Scorsese read it himself; then he sent a brief note to me. He wrote, ‘At first, I laughed a whole lot, and by the end, I was very sad, as I saw the women of my own life in front of my inner eye as I was reading [your script].’ One needs to know that Scorsese did not have a shortage of women.”

National Treasure Hunt: One Step Short of Crazy by Aubrey R. Paris and Emily M. Black (Tucker DS Press)

While the Disney+ series continuation of the National Treasure films aired to little fanfare and was recently canceled, the affection many moviegoers have for the Nicolas Cage-starrers has not diminished one bit. This audience will have a blast reading One Step Short of Crazy, a pleasurable, obsessively detailed (in the best sense) look at the franchise. Paris and Black, both holders of PhDs, actually began their exploration with a podcast. This book followed, and along with it much to ponder, including background on the scripts and production of the films, the series’ connections to real (and imagined) history, and even a guide to locations and landmarks. The authors demonstrate why, in the eyes of fans, “the franchise remains so relevant and rewatchable to this day.” 

Tangents: From the Making of Shepard & Dark edited and with photographs by Treva Wurmfeld (Oscilloscope)

Oscilloscope’s lovely tribute to the late, deeply missed Sam Shepard is a photo-packed look at his friendship with writer and best friend Johnny Dark. The book also comes with a Blu-ray copy of the documentary Shepard & Dark, which was originally released in 2023. The film’s director, Treva Wurmfeld, shares what she calls “interview dialogues” in this wonderful companion to the documentary. 

Roman Polanski: Behind the Scenes of His Classic Early Films by Jordan R. Young (Applause)

The life and career of Roman Polanski have been documented in exhausting detail over the last several decades, but Jordan Young finds new ground to cover by turning his attention to a crucial era in Polanski’s development. Specifically, Young outlines the production and release of three films: Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac, and Dance of the Vampires (a.k.a., The Fearless Vampire Killers). The author devotes the most space to the deliciously fucked up Cul-de-Sac, which he believes is “the quintessential cult film.”

Elizabeth Taylor: Icon of American Empire by Gloria Shin (Lexington Books)

Yes, there is more to say about Elizabeth Taylor, and Gloria Shin proves it with her unique look at the late icon as the model of postcolonial whiteness. Of particular interest is Shin’s focus on Taylor’s AIDS activism, and how Taylor served “as an effective agent of positive social change.” Writes Shin: “As a woman who realizes her sexuality in the very socially and political conservative early 1950s and who becomes a singular icon of liberalized feminine sexuality in the early 1960s, notably as cinema’s most famous and seductive Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor’s public and rampant vilification for her erotic exploits arguably makes her an appropriate figure to stand up for gay men whose sexual practices are represented as virulent and deadly in the 1980s.”

Killin’ Generals: The Making of The Dirty Dozen, the Most Iconic WWII Movie of All Time by Dwayne Epstein (Citadel Press)

June is, of course, the month for Father’s Day, so shouldn’t we spend some time with a certified Dad Favorite? There is a good chance your dad is watching The Dirty Dozen right now, and if so, Killin’ Generals will be a must-read. Author Epstein explains why the star-filed World War II actioner was “one of the most hotly debated films” of the 1960s. Especially interesting for cinephiles are the descriptions of conflicted co-star John Cassavetes from producer Ken Hyman: “Cassavetes didn’t want to do the movie. He wanted to direct a movie. I almost had a fistfight with him to get him to do it. I’d said, ‘Johnny, for god’s sake, this is a wonderful role. Do the movie! Put your money in your pocket, then make your movie.” Cassavetes acquiesced, and gave a fine performance in one of his most widely seen roles. 

Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams (Penguin Press)

The best way to describe Unscripted, a non-fiction show-biz soap opera about the shockingly horny Sumner Redstone, his family, the Viacom board, and the women vying for his fortune? Try real-life Succession, with more sex. Admittedly, there is not much consideration here of Redstone’s contributions to the entertainment world. Rather, Unscripted is all about Redstone’s personal foibles, and the effect of these on the companies he built and the people in his orbit. It is a tale of glamorous villainesses, vexed staff members, worried family, and––my personal favorite––a dashing former soap opera star hawking his memoirs. It is a wild tale, and catnip for anyone who enjoys digging into tales of tabloid headline-making Hollywood drama. Just prepare to feel a bit icky afterward. 

New music books

Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska by Warren Zanes (Crown)

In a career of several masterpieces, it is safe to say Bruce Springsteen has only one record like Nebraska. It is also safe to say that it is his greatest achievement, and an album that unmistakably laid the groundwork for later heavyweights like Silver Jews, The National, and Bon Iver. Nebraska crackles (literally, because it was recorded on a home cassette recorder) and intensity, and bristles with unease. Zanes, a member of the late garage rock band the Del Fuegos, dissects the making of the album in detail, and uncovers key influences. One biggie? Terrence Malick’s Badlands. “Something about that story of a teenage serial murderer reminded Springsteen of his own life,” Zanes writes. Springsteen recalls that Badlands “didn’t make a big splash. And that connected up with the kind of place I was in. I was drawing from culturally quiet places and sources.” Nebraska deserved a book this hauntingly beautiful. 

The Fascist Groove Thing: A History of Thatcher’s Britain in 21 Mixtapes by Hugh Hodges (PM Press)

Here’s a brilliant concept: a collection of 21 mixtapes centered on the horrors of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, along with analysis of the songs, the performers, and the meaning of it all. Hugh Hodges, then, has created the ultimate Spotify playlist for some of the grimmest eras of 1970s and 80s British life. “You may not remember all the bands on this mixtape,” Hodges writes after presenting “MIXTAPE 1,” which features, among others, the Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Madness, the Specials, the Smiths, Billy Bragg, and the Style Council. “You may have never heard of some of them. That’s okay. The point is that there were so many songs written about Thatcher in the 1980s that you can practically trace the outline of her career as prime minister just from their titles.”

Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History by Bill Janovitz (Hachette)

The legendary Leon Russell sadly passed away in 2016, but in the years before his death he found a new level of appreciation. As Bill Janovitz shares in his stellar biography of Russell, Elton John played a major part in this; Russell was one of John’s inspirations and the latter made it a mission to bring Russell back to cultural prominence. The Elton connection is a unique twist in a book full of them. Another involves the late documentarian Les Blank, who famously directed a film about Russell, A Poem Is a Naked Person, in the early 1970s. It was not shown until after Blank’s death, when Russell finally agreed to its release. “It not only introduced the general public to—and reminded his fans of—Leon in his prime,” writes, Janovitz, “but it reconnected old Leon to his younger self, from ‘hippo’ back to ‘hippie.’ He was far enough away from that young skinny live wire that he must have seemed a stranger to himself.” Janovitz, a founding member of Buffalo Tom, has crafted an extraordinary bio, one that captures the genius and sadness of an icon. 

The latest in D&D, DC, Star Wars, LEGO, and the Wizarding World, Star Wars

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was an enjoyable spring film, and two prequel novels — The Road to Neverwinter by Jaleigh Johnson and Honor Among Thieves: The Druid’s Call by E.K. Johnston (both Random House Worlds) add some complexity to the characters played by Chris Pine and Sophia Lillis, respectively. In addition, the design and history of Pine’s Edgin Darvis and Lillis’ Doric are presented in detailed fashion in The Art and Making of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Ten Speed Press). And the D&D faithful should also be aware of Dungeons and Dragons The Legend of Drizzt Visual Dictionary. Michael Witwer’s text colorfully outlines the character who was first introduced in R.A. Salvatore’s book series, along with the world he inhabits.

Meanwhile, The DC Book of Pride by Jadzia Axelrod (DK) is a timely guide to the LGBTQIA+ characters of the DC Universe. Many of these were new to me––I knew not of Bluebird and Dreamer––but all are given a backstory, along with the date and identity of their first appearance.

While the aforementioned Return of the Jedi: Unauthorized Timeline 1976-2023 looks at the dates and details for the history of one film, Star Wars Timelines by Kristin Baver, Jason Fry, Cole Horton, Amy Richau, and Clayton Sandell (DK) is a run through all of the series’ events. The book has already made some headlines for a few tidbits of info related to the chronology of The Phantom Menace and Boba Fett’s life. Timelines starts with the founding of the Jedi Order and ends on “Rey … Rey Skywalker,” while including events from last year’s Kenobi. This is a truly exhaustive text, one that should be the final word (for now, anyway) on the “whens” of the world of Star Wars.

Plus, two new novels to watch for are Star Wars: Jedi: Battle Scars by Sam Maggs (Random House Worlds), which expands the story of Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor’s Cal Kestis, and Star Wars: The High Republic: Cataclysm by Lydia Kang (Random House Worlds) continues the events of The High Republic: Convergence with a wartime thriller. Speaking of Star Wars novels, back in 2021 we highlighted the “Star Wars Essential Legends Collection” from Del Rey, which featured rereleased novels from the pre-sequel trilogy days. The most notable of these was Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the 1991 release taking place after Return of the Jedi. My son and I just finished reading the second and third books in what was dubbed “The Thrawn Trilogy,” 1992’s Dark Force Rising and 1993’s The Last Command. The trilogy remains a high point of the Star Wars “Expanded Universe,” and Rising and Command are just as strong as Heir to the Empire.

Chronicle Books’ LEGO Heroes by Graham E. Hancock is a genuinely inspiring window into the creativity and passion of LEGO builders, young and old. The book highlights unique projects like bricks with braille studs and a brilliantly conceived LEGO wheelchair ramp. 

And lastly, the creation of the blockbuster Hogwarts Legacy video game is presented in The Art and Making of Hogwarts Legacy: Exploring the Unwritten Wizarding World (Insight Editions). It was clearly quite an undertaking to develop, for example, more than twenty shops in Hogsmeade and the 1800s-era grounds of Hogwarts. The scale of the work was astounding, but the game sales probably mean it was all worth it.

The post Recommended New Books on Filmmaking: Paul Thomas Anderson’s America, The Dirty Dozen, Giallo, Surveying the African American Western & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy professes to be something more than just a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy: an extremely ambitious film attempting to navigate the impact and cultural presence of John Schlesinger’s masterpiece while also exploring the history of American queer cinema, the death of the Western in the mainstream, and the counter-culture of the ’60s transforming into the nihilism of the 1970s. Packing so much information and so many perspectives into 101 minutes occasionally comes across as overstuffed. But Desperate Souls’ sheer enthusiasm for Midnight Cowboy and the cultural period is infectious, a vibe that compensates for certain faults holding it back from becoming a truly great documentary. 

While structurally ambitious in its approach to montage, the precise cutting is flawed and fragmented. Transitions between interviews and archival footage are often awkward and lackluster, and editing plays slightly rushed during some of the deviations from its main subject. And if many of the different paths Buirski takes are welcomed, particularly the exploration of queer cinema’s history, they can feel clunky in their insertion. Nancy Buirski’s documentary particularly struggles to justify its transition into discussing the death of the mainstream Western, playing unnatural in its departure from the more thematically relevant sections. 

There is a sense of rawness throughout the text, not just in its scattershot focus but in the presentation. The film is texturally rough, with a lack of slickness and calibration in presentation. Most of the archival footage is grainy, beat-up: these shots often contain flair, presence, texture, and when paired with the dull interview footage there is an abundance of bleak grays in the color palette. (Non-archive footage is largely talking-head interviews largely set in gray rooms with dull sunlight.) It only really sings when Midnight Cowboy’s cinematography is featured, DP Adam Holender’s images creating a sense of total immersion in this world of deadbeats and hustlers. Such images maintain that power and immersion, even through the prism of this documentary. 

Any criticisms notwithstanding, Desperate Souls boasts many charms and goes down easy. Its wide range of interview subjects often offer genuine insight into whichever topic they’re discussing. (Controversial co-lead Jon Voight proves particularly revealing and compelling.) And its deviations have a rambunctious, gleeful charm that match the subject. Buirski clearly wants to show as much as possible about the time period and fit in as much history as allows––an admirable trait, not least in a time when the cultural perception of film history seems to be eroding. At best, Desperate Souls suggests a series of passionate stories being told by a beloved family member, occasionally sprawling but never anything less than compelling. By the end there’s a sense of sadness that its shaggy pleasures are now in the past, rendering its faults comparatively minor.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy is now in limited release and will expand.

The post Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy Review: Nancy Buirski Unpacks the Cultural Impact of a Masterpiece first appeared on The Film Stage.

By the standards of a war-based documentary, Jordan Bryon and Monica Villamizar’s Transition rarely features violence. Steering clear of carnage, it instead focuses on Bryon hanging out with Taliban soldiers, spending time within their homes, their training sessions, and their strongholds throughout Afghanistan. He’s making a film for the New York Times while going through the process of gender transition, the backdrop of the Taliban’s takeover simmering around him. The resulting documentary teeters on this complicated situation: the understanding that if the Taliban soldiers learn Bryon’s secrets, they’ll likely kill him. 

Bryon and Villamizar direct without much fuss, opting to use a majority of the former’s footage as their main source for framing. There aren’t any talking heads or long-winded interviews, no Q&A sessions with Bryon discussing his time in Afghanistan. It’s the life of a war documentarian over the course of his transition neither expanding into a treatise on world politics nor even the Taliban’s regime. It’s about a single, solitary man and the threat he avoided every day. 

Bryon’s courage should be a sticking point, the most obvious takeaway. He stayed in Afghanistan during almost the entirety of his transition, risking his life for the impact of journalism. His work often entailed friendships with Taliban leaders. He bonded with them, cracking jokes, holding their guns, texting and calling them like any friends would do. There’s an ethical quandary to be discussed about the actual impact of Transition outside Bryon’s own nerves of steel. 

Still, the footage he captures is immense: the regularity of the soldiers’ lives, the ease in which Bryon ingratiates himself into their social circle, the acceptance they give him unknowing of the process he’s going through. Transition contains tension due to circumstance. The filmmakers don’t need to add any extra flair or style. As the fear only ratchets as Bryon’s surgery grows near, chances of discovery rise with every minute he spends alongside the Taliban, and as such the viewer’s worry increases. Bryon’s safety becomes the paramount concern, even though the status of his well-being can be surmised simply by the film’s existence. 

Transition doesn’t work without Bryon’s willing participation. He’s more than a worthy documentary subject, a man chronicling a hostile takeover while dealing with his own internal, massive life changes. But he rarely falters, only showing moments of weakness when alone or surrounded by his cameraman and solitary friend. His support system is small, mighty. It’s impossible not to root for him on this physical and emotional journey, and the film plays into that heart. It knows the incredibility of its real-life protagonist, and in return Bryon gives himself over to the film. He allows the camera to follow him wherever he goes, experience whatever he experiences, resting on his face and his body amidst all the changes. 

There’s something to be said about the specific scope of Bryon and Villamizar’s film, about the lighter aura surrounding these men who embrace and worship violence––specifically murder. The directors are telling a fixed story with a clear ending, whatever the continued factions rising and falling in Afghanistan. Bryon deserves the focus, yet the film never paints any broader strokes. Transition works because of that one person, but it cannot climb any further under these limitations. 

Transition premiered at the Tribeca Festival.

The post Tribeca Review: Transition Follows a Trans Reporter’s Harrowing Journey Profiling the Taliban first appeared on The Film Stage.

After directing together for over three decades, Joel and Ethan Coen have parted ways for their recent projects. The former helmed the black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth, while the latter premiered his documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind at Cannes last year and is awaiting a release, then followed it up with Drive-Away Dolls, a lesbian road trip comedy that will arrive this September.

Written by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, shot by Ari Wegner, scored by Carter Burwell, and starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon, the first trailer has now arrived online after being attached to Asteroid City. In an interview with Collider, Coen and Cooke also reveal the film is only 83 minutes, has “a lot of sex stuff,” and is part of a trilogy of queer B movies they will make.

Here’s the synopsis: “This comedy caper follows Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, and her demure friend Marian who desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.”

See the trailer below.

Drive-Away Dolls opens on September 22, 2023.

The post First Trailer for Ethan Coen’s Lesbian Road Trip Comedy Drive-Away Dolls first appeared on The Film Stage.

It’s a crisp morning in Nyon and Lucrecia Martel is going off on one. “To arrive at a meaning you need a sentence, so that is the word order,” she begins, her translator gamely keeping pace, “then there is the sound material of the dialogue, which is completely different from the sentence, and it can sometimes oppose the meaning. But it’s the chronological order of the words and the meaning which dominates the process of writing a script, which is odd. Everything which is not in the script is the sound; it’s the most difficult thing to capture in the script. Those are the tools we work with. That’s why it’s so difficult to write dialogue: because you’re capturing only the sense of words and leaving the sound out. We’re not talking about an obsession here; this is something that happens in any conversation in a family.” Growing nervous about our dwindling time together, I decide to interject.

Martel was born in 1966 in Salta in North Argentina. She says that the region’s “evident racism” and stark class divides informed much of her work, a history that she describes as “extremely complex.” The same could be said of Martel’s unique approach to cinema, as it could about the artist’s worldview. In a 2.5- hour masterclass, conducted at the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland, she spared no time in railing against the homogenizing effect of things like film-studies curriculum and production labs. (“Better to be personal and maybe not connect with anyone,” she argued, “than to be universal and maybe not reach anyone.”) She’s held up as a hero by a new generation of cinephiles––trendy t-shirts and all––yet she rejects being called a feminist filmmaker and has spoken out against cancel culture in the past. As head of the Venice Film Festival in 2019, and after saying that she wouldn’t attend a dinner in his honor, her jury awarded Roman Polanski best director; then hilariously awarded Todd Phillips’ Joker the Golden Lion. (“Identity is a prison,” the director observed to a packed house of mostly university-age attendees, “that obliges you to be who you say you are.”)

We met earlier that day at Nyon’s hotel ambassador. As an interviewee and conversationalist, Martel is generous and delightful, searching and humble, with a kindness in her eyes that can only be concealed for so long by those iconic pink sunglasses. For a short and sweet 20 minutes we talked about her near-obsessive fascination with sound, her brush with the MCU, and how things are going with her upcoming documentary about the murder of the indigenous activist Javier Chocobar.

The Film Stage: You’ve described cinema many times as being like a swimming pool on its side. It’s such an interesting concept. Could you unpack it a bit for us?

Lucrecia Martel: That, for me, is the best way to explain how a film actually works mechanically. Our culture is focused on the image. Our entire culture has faith in vision more than the other senses. The idea of the arrow of time, that we arbitrarily found a representation of time that is very closely connected to vision. The future is always from now, from out, face-forward; no one is thinking of the future as something behind us. In the Mayan culture they are always looking behind. Just imagine what it is to be old in such a culture: the old person is someone who can see furthest and is therefore someone very important.

In our culture it’s youth who has the future in front. Just imagine everything that defines this. So in cinema, the image has had a dominant role to play when you think of this time arrow, with the chronological order of images in this process. If we had based ourselves on sound instead of image we would have wound up in a different place, especially regarding the idea of time. So imagine you’re in a cinema, that’s a volume, and then the images are running over a flat surface, but everything that surrounds you––everything that’s tactile, that touches you––is the sound. And everything which is outside the image is implied by the sound. Of course, if you just have a cutout of an image you can imagine a lot around it, but it’s the sound that makes it material. So to observe this at work is very interesting when you imagine what you’re going to do when you make a film. In terms of physics or spatial characteristics, the volume that you’re sitting in is enormous compared to something that is very small. It’s something you can observe very easily with the concept of a swimming pool.

You obviously think on a very profound level about the sound in cinema. I’m curious if there was a particular film that you saw when you were younger, or that you appreciate now, that triggered this fascination with sound in a cinematic context.

What Happened to Baby Jane?––this film triggered something in me in spite of the fact that it’s a conventional movie. It’s a spectacular movie, a magnificent movie but a classical movie. The leitmotifs were important, the music, there was something there that triggered something in me. Apichatpong feels very close to me in the way he uses sound, but there’s no one of his films in particular; I like all of them.

Can we talk about the documentary you’ve been working on about Javier Chocobar? With Zama you told a story about colonialism in the 17th century. With this next film it sounds as if you will, in a way, talk about that same history in a present-day context. Do you see it as a kind of distant sequel?

Well, I started working on this film in 2010––so if anything Zama, from 2017, is the sequel. I’m still editing Chocobar. I don’t know if the title will be Chocobar at this point, but the film is all about the crime involving this man. It’s been 13 years. I live very far from that community so I can’t spend large periods of time with them. I also feel very uncomfortable when I interrupt the lives of these people. There are people, like people who make documentary films, they have this facility to connect with people very easily and I don’t have that. It’s a huge effort for me. And imagine: I have to use a cane now and these are mountainous areas!

What stage are you at with it?

I have 300 hours of material. I have edited some parts of it with Miguel Schverdfinger, who edited The Headless Woman and Zama. There’s much more material than there is money so I’m trying to concentrate things, to make it shorter, so that the budget will allow me to work further.

In aesthetic terms, will it be a more conventional style of documentary than we might expect from you?

I’m sure it’s going to be much less interesting than many of the documentaries made by filmmakers who make documentaries. But you have to understand this is a topic that is absolutely crucial to my area, to the Salta region.

I’m curious about some things that happened since Zama. You were offered Black Widow by Marvel––did you see it when it came out?

No, no, no––I didn’t see Black Widow. I tried to. They contacted a great number of female directors. I never would have imagined that Marvel could contact and bring together a pool of directors and I would be a part of it; I never thought that would be possible. I would have loved to make a film with them but I would have had to provide something that I would like to see in that world.

It turns out some of the Marvel films are available on planes so I’ve seen a few. I find the sound in them is absolutely in very poor taste, the visual effects and the sound of the effects.

That’s interesting. Could you describe what it is about the sound that you find in poor taste?

It’s the selection of the sounds that they’re connecting to the effects, which is actually very ugly. And the way the music is used is actually horrible.

It was such a funny story. Had you ever been offered something like that before?

Some very interesting things, but I was involved in something else. This documentary I’m working on is extremely difficult. It requires a huge amount of time. Those films that are opportunistic, the third line of the mainstream, they have tiny budgets and don’t have much ambition. This is often what Latin-American filmmakers are offered. Remakes of movies from the ’30s, for example. The big companies have the rights to the scripts. It might be that a director who’s a cheap director––probably from a Latin country––they put them together with some stars and a script they have the rights to. Sometimes it can happen under these circumstances that the film is a success.

The other big story was your time as jury head at Venice in 2019, awarding Joker and Polanski and all that. Has enough time passed that you can talk about it?

Joker is incredible for that particular group of films. But my favorite was the Chinese film, an animated film.

Oh, with the cats and the nipples?

[Laughs] Yes, No.7 Cherry Lane. When the vote was cast it was Joker, but I liked that Chinese film enormously. You could see figures of a man and a woman, but it was clear to me it was two men. It’s a love story. So I was looking at it but I perceived something different. I really loved that movie.

The post Lucrecia Martel on Her Brush with the MCU, Awarding Joker, and Her Upcoming Javier Chocobar Documentary first appeared on The Film Stage.

Two of the best films of the year also happen to feature two of the best soundtracks of the year and as each enters a wide release today, the scores are now available to stream in full. Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City boasts an epic soundtrack of 25 songs amounting to over 70 minutes, featuring Alexandre Desplat, Jarvis Cocker, Big Crosby, Les Paul, Burl Ives, Tex Ritter, Les Baxter, and many more.

Then, Grizzly Bear’s Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen reunited to score Celine Song’s debut Past Lives, clocking in at 16 tracks around 40 minutes, also including the end credits track “Quiet Eyes” by Sharon Van Etten and Zachary Dawes. “What a pleasure it was to score this film with [Rossen] and make music I feel very connected with,” said Bear. “Celine Song is a force and had such incredible vision and execution.”

Luke Hicks said in his Cannes review of Asteroid City, “A sultry, creamy western that feels more like a vacation, Asteroid City is an absolute delight, Anderson’s best since The Grand Budapest Hotel. It practically begs you to sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself. Hell, it might even want you to take a nap, but not for lack of entertainment. As the characters of Asteroid City know all too well, “You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.” Remember that.”

I said in my Sundance review of Past Lives, “Whether miniscule or major, the millions of decisions we make form the winding path of our lives. Specific reasons for taking certain forks in the road can often be lost to the sea of time, swelling back up only as our memory allows. A triptych not-quite-romance crossing nearly a quarter-century, playwright Celine Song’s directorial debut Past Lives examines such universal experience with keen cultural specificity, telling the story of childhood friends who twice reconnect later in life. It’s a warm, patient film culminating in a quietly powerful, reflective finale, though its sum is greater than its parts when the first two sections register a touch underdeveloped.”

Listen to both below, and watch a video on the making of the musical performance in Asteroid City.

The post Listen to the Soundtracks for Asteroid City and Past Lives first appeared on The Film Stage.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we have the return of the great Mark Pellington! The filmmaker is back to talk about his new film Survive, now available on VOD. We also discuss his recent, experimental dance film The Severing (also on VOD). Plenty more is covered here, Pellington ever the open book to chat about the creative process, the business behind each project, and the motivation to work in every aspect of the film medium. Here’s a reminder that this is the guy who made Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies, some of the best music videos ever made, some of the weirdest, coolest stuff ever on MTV, and a slew of other interesting, powerful pieces of work.

For more from The B-Side, you can check out highlights of actors/directors and the films discussed in one place here.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.

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The post The B-Side – In Conversation with Mark Pellington (Part II) first appeared on The Film Stage.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Armageddon Time (James Gray)

Armageddon Time is the sort of film usually invoked as a “portrait of the nation” or “state of the union address,” something taking the temperature of a country—most likely the United States—at a particular time in history. But it’s also a work that makes self-consciousness a virtue: its wonderful writer-director, James Gray, is informed up to his eyes about the virtues and pitfalls of films like these, and here makes something so idiosyncratically his own but that audiences and critics might still mislabel with one of those aforementioned ideas. – David K. (full review)

Where to Stream: Prime Video

Godland (Hlynur Pálmason)

Featuring onscreen text explaining how the film was inspired by left-behind photos taken by a Danish priest while visiting Iceland in the late 1800s (as opposed to how it was actually suburban American child Andy’s favorite movie in 1995), Godland takes on the heavy weight of a historical object. But though this is really a film fighting a battle between formalism and compelling dramaturgy, the questions it asks will actually be much simpler. Our stand-in for the unnamed priest of historical record is the young Lutheran Lucas (Elliot Crosset Hove), assigned to help build a church in rural Iceland by his rather bored-looking superior in the ministry (he spends the meeting eating food, not making eye contact). Yet this is no easy task: Iceland is wild country and Lucas’ trek will take him into the so-to-speak heart of darkness. – Ethan V. (full review)

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg)

By now the Cronenberg surname has become synonymous with bodily obsession. Like his father David’s wealthy oeuvre of anatomical grotesquerie, Brandon Cronenberg has taken the torch and developed his own small, corporeal-minded canon, blending a gory imagination with sharp socio-economic fables. More than his chilling, futuristic narrative concepts, it’s his sensory details that overwhelm and entrance, grounding science fiction in the earthly vulgarities and excretions that deliver genuine shocks instead of cheap thrills. That he can keep twisting the knife and warrant an appreciation for his detail and dexterity is a rare gift. – Jake K-S. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

Morning of the Earth (Albert Falzon)

A rarely seen, recently remastered surf epic filmed in beaches across Australia, Hawaii, and Indonesia. Spearheaded by photographer-filmmaker-surfer Albert “Alby” Falzon, Morning of the Earth quickly achieved cult status upon initial release for its stunning cinematography, psychedelic soundtrack, and candid depiction of surfers raising chickens and growing their own vegetables that resonated with the nature-lovin’ youth counterculture of the era. Inspired by Jonas Mekas’ writing, Falzon made a film “that was a reflection of the spirit of surfing at the time.”

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Pacifiction (Albert Serra)

Pacifiction is what Albert Serra might describe as an unfuckable movie. “Unfuckable is, you take the whole thing or you don’t take it but you cannot apply a critical judgment in an easy way,” he explained to us in 2019, “because it is what it is and it doesn’t look like any other film.” Pacifiction does not look like any other film. It doesn’t taste or smell like other films, either, even Serra’s own distinctive body of work. It premiered in a Cannes competition that has been high on wattage but low on power, crying out for a sensation. Pacifiction is that sensation: a film unlike any other this year, appearing near the end of proceedings, with the festival’s final furlongs already in sight; it is the closest the selection has come to delivering a masterpiece. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)

Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)

Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, the French drama Other People’s Children has a simple plot linked with complex ideas. Following Rachel (Virginie Efira), a 40-year-old childless, single teacher, the film watches her fall in love with Ali (Roschdy Zem), a man with a young daughter named Leila. Rachel, always wanting kids of her own, becomes connected to Leila, forcing her to confront her own views on motherhood. Zlotowski’s film grows into a study of overheard conversations and biting words from kids, those who don’t know any better. – Michael F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Sanctuary (Zachary Wigon)

How well do you know your regular sex worker? How well do they know you? What Hal (Christopher Abbott) and Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) share may have begun as a source of fun, but it’s obviously evolved into something much deeper. It’s now akin to therapy and they both know it to be true. The problem, however, lies in how they interpret what these sessions actually provide. Does Hal need Rebecca to come and validate his fetishized insecurities so he can achieve orgasmic release? Or does she do it to empower him with the necessary confidence to lead a company that’s suddenly fallen to him upon the death of his domineering father? Can either of them really know for sure? Not with money involved. Honesty demands higher stakes. – Jared M. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Stroll (Kristen Lovell and Zachary Drucker)

A frank celebration of a pre-Giuliani New York, Kristen Lovell and Zachary Drucker’s The Stroll explores a unique period from the inside. Lovell––an actress, activist, and the producer of the seminal trans film The Garden Left Behind––knows the streets well, and after being the subject of a 2007 documentary about prostitution her eyes were opened to the possibility of one day making a film. In fifteen years, she’s gone from being homeless and sleeping at a Times Square megaplex to debuting her HBO-backed feature in Park City at the nation’s premier indie film festival. – John F. (full review)

Where to Stream: Max

Three Floors (Nanni Moretti)

A car is knocked off-course on a quiet suburban street and crashes fatally into the front room of a well-furnished apartment. In the flurry of bricks and wall plaster, it lands inches from the feet of a young girl who stares the wreckage down with a cool, deadpan expression. If this is your classic “inciting incident” for a full-bodied, conventionally structured drama, its oddly comic denouement––coupled with the main characters all appearing to survey the outcome in little, rhythmic intervals––mark Three Floors as a work by Nanni Moretti, who never met an instance of bourgeois life he couldn’t mischievously ironize. – David K. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)

You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener)

In a landscape that has mostly lost its taste for comedy, every Nicole Holofcener film feels like a revelation. While she has more on her mind than just making audiences laugh, her gift for humor is undervalued, and her latest, You Hurt My Feelings, is as perceptive, insightful, and funny as her best work. The stakes may be considered low, but that is only in comparison to the ill-perceived notion that audiences need to be satiated with overcomplicated, heightened narratives that stretch beyond quotidian human issues. For these characters the stakes couldn’t be higher, and it’s refreshing to see a director examine the major emotional consequences of small but significant actions. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Also New to Streaming

Max

Evil Dead Rise

Metrograph

The Living End
Totally F***ed Up

MUBI (free for 30 days)

Caravaggio 
Wittgenstein
Never Fear
Kotoko
Aribada

The post New to Streaming: You Hurt My Feelings, Sanctuary, Pacifiction, Godland, Other People’s Children & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

When the trailer for Gene Stupnitksy’s No Hard Feelings made the rounds online, it felt like a mild event. Not only for a return to big theatrical releases for star Jennifer Lawrence, but also a return of the big-budget, theatrically released sex comedy, a genre that has been mostly relegated to streaming. It was great to see one of the few remaining stars who can draw an audience throw her considerable influence behind a straight-up comedy. 

But for No Hard Feelings to salvage comedy it must actually be funny. And overall it is. Lawrence plays Maddie, a 32-year-old Uber driver whose car is repossessed for her failure to pay property tax. She answers a Craigslist ad that offers to trade a Buick as payment for “dating” the owner’s sheltered son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). Maddie takes on the assignment to find Percy is not the horny teen she expected, but a fearful romantic. Notwithstanding a few slumps, the script is nimble, and Lawrence and Feldman navigate their lines skillfully; when Maddie is confronted by Percy’s creepy, overprotective male nanny about what her intentions are with him she spits back, “Same as yours: I want to date him.” 

Yet when making a similar gay joke later on, she gets called out for being homophobic. And even though that particular scene is a little on-the-nose, the film plays thoughtfully with how culture has shifted since sex comedies of the 2000s. A scene where Maddie walks seductively towards the shrimpy Percy and asks to touch his wiener (he’s holding a dachshund) feels powerfully nostalgic: the immature double entendres, the obviousness of her short dress and high heels, and the trope of a sexually aggressive woman seducing the nerd. In films of the past, women acted like this in daydreams (the unforgettable poolside scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) or as a prank, but often we were supposed to believe they were so self-possessed and direct (e.g. Shannon Elizabeth’s foreign-exchange student in American Pie). Since No Hard Feelings is about Maddie’s subterfuge, the trope is played explicitly as a performance of male fantasy. Maddie is a millennial; she was raised to think this is what turns men on. And it typically works for her, but the man in question is a Zoomer. 

The bulk of No Hard Feelings‘ jokes revolve around such generational divide: Zoomers are too sensitive, too coddled, risk-averse. Millennials are disillusioned, priced out of the housing market, unable to commit, living off a precarious gig economy. It’s inherently funny to see the womanly, 5’9″ Lawrence in the same frame as the skinny, awkward Feldman. Though this pairing is legal (Percy is 19), the film plays with our discomfort towards age-gap relationships and a tendency of online discourse to treat the younger partner as a helpless victim, regardless of age. Maddie is confused by Percy’s resistance to her, his paranoia around physical attacks (he carries mace with him), and his fear of sex––she must not be on Twitter. 

Neither is Jennifer Lawrence, who has maintained an old-school star aura partly by being offline. She’s admirably strategic about her public persona, and No Hard Feelings is a truly great career move. The Oscar-winning actress is game to take on the physical humiliations of the genre; she gets maced, punched in the throat, and (as a true testament to her commitment) performs a fight scene fully nude. But the film is also tame. There’s a notable lack of bodily fluids and actual sex (it’s probably not a good sign if your raunchy comedy doesn’t ever make me, a very squeamish person, want to look away). This relative prudishness might come from producers unsure if the audience is ready to dive back into the stomach-churning side of sex comedies. It may also simply be the sensibility of Stupkitsky, whose work––like Bad Teacher, Good Boys, and The Office––veers closer to sweet than gross.

If No Hard Feelings lacks outrageousness and transgression, it is surprisingly nuanced and sensitive: after the raucous house-party scene where Maddie is punched, the film cuts to the pair in a limousine, Maddie holding a can of soda to her bruised neck, Percy’s head on her lap. The only thing more improbable than a 32-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man being lovers is being friends, but it’s so crazy that it just might work. 

No Hard Feelings opens in theaters on Friday, June 23.

The post No Hard Feelings Review: Jennifer Lawrence’s Comedy Outing is Well-Crafted, Funny, and Far Too Tame first appeared on The Film Stage.