WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: May 25-June 1
The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a list of new and upcoming films, check out our 2023 Movie Guide.
Master Gardener Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, helms this tale of a former white nationalist (Joel Edgerton) working on a Louisiana estate whose repressed past threatens to explode his pastoral existence when his bayou royalty benefactor (Sigourney Weaver) insists he take on her niece (Quintessa Swindell) as an apprentice. If the conclusion to Schrader’s “The Man in a Room” trilogy that began with 2018’s First Reformed and 2021’s The Card Counter is as riveting as its predecessors, it’s a shoo-in for one of the year’s essential films. Now playing at the Belcourt.
You Hurt My Feelings Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as a renowned writer who questions the foundations of her decades-old marriage after she discovers her husband isn’t a fan of her work. Writer-director Nicole Holofcener has remained a master of sharp and self-critical films about the privileged class since her Sundance breakout in 1996. This one looks to hit another high mark. Now playing in theaters.
Kandahar Gerard Butler plays an undercover CIA operative who must reach an extraction point with his translator when their cover is blown. Uncle Joe’s Afghanistan may be off-limits except in genre flicks like this and The Covenant, but they will be better remembered (and remain better) than the Oscar-bait War on Terror screeds of yesteryear. Now playing in theaters.
The Little Mermaid Ariel is diverse, Ursula is Melissa McCarthy, and “Kiss the Girl” is now a consent anthem in the latest superfluous and sure-to-be soulless live-action remake of a Disney animated classic. Now playing in theaters.
The Machine - Perpetually shirtless stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer plays himself in this souped-up truish tale of Russian mobsters kidnapping him and his judgmental father (Mark Hamill) to exact revenge for his role as a drunken train robber while studying abroad in college. America hasn’t had a red-meat, coke-fueled guy comedy since The Hangover fizzled out ten years ago. It’s time for a renaissance. Now playing in theaters.
About My Father “America’s favorite comedian,” Sebastian Maniscalco, teams with Robert De Niro for a reverse meet-the-parents, bring-the-old-man-to-the-WASP-holiday-weekend exercise in culture clash. It has to get better than the scene where the star of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull serves up pet peacock for dinner, right? Paging Paul Schrader and his transcendental masculine character studies. Now playing in theaters.
The Wrath of Becky According to The New York Times, this sequel to 2020’s horror-thriller Becky finds the titular 16-year-old once again doing battle with “far-right knuckle-draggers” led by American Pie star Seann William Scott. The type of escapist fare someone who packs The Jan. 6 Report as a beach read would salivate over. Now playing in theaters.
The Belcourt Presents 1973 The film event of the summer continues as The Belcourt brings 18 titles from the greatest year of the greatest period in American cinema back to the big screen. The retrospective features everything from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain to Disney’s Robin Hood and Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. Our picks: The Harder They Come, The Long Goodbye, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Mean Streets, and Serpico. As if we needed any more proof they don’t make them like they used to.
The Latest in Bolly/Tolly/Kolly/Lollywood and Other Special Presentations of Asian Imports
#MENTOO (Telugu) Fed up with discrimination from shrill feminists, dudes from all walks of life band together to show men are victims too. Don’t expect a Hollywood remake. Now playing at Regal Hollywood 27.
Lat Mat 6 (Vietnamese) When a group who bought a winning lottery ticket realizes the holder has dropped dead, its members embark on a journey to claim their $100 million jackpot. Now playing at Regal Hollywood 27.
Mem Famous (Telugu) Word is it’s, “A high-energy, youthful journey filled with amazing moments of friendship, love and family, set in a beautiful and colorful village.” If only Hollywood could foster such faith in its own output that audiences would show up anyway despite such scant details. Now playing at Regal Hollywood 27.