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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND March 1, 2019 – TYLER PERRY’S A MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL, GRETA

It’s my birthday weekend and while I’m not that interested in either of the two new wide releases -- both moderate releases opening in less than 3,000 theaters -- I probably will go watch some old movies around my work schedule. (Check out the full repertory line-up below!)

Either way, at least one of this weekend’s wide releases is being geared towards a very specific built-in fanbase, and that movie is…

TYLER PERRY’S A MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL (Liongsate)

Written and Directed by Tyler Perry (Too many movies to list them all.) Cast: Tyler Perry, Cassi Davis, Patrice Lovely, Mike Tyson, Ciera Payton, KJ Smith MPAA Rating: PG-13

Every night I go to sleep hoping and praying that I never have to write about another Tyler Perry movie again, and apparently, I may finally get my wish, at least in terms of Perry making another Madea movie, since this is apparently his last movie in a franchise which began all the way back in 2005 with Diary of a Mad Black Woman. (Actually, Madea began a lot further back than that with Perry’s stageplays, but 2005 was when Madea first entered my limited worldview, and I’ve written about twenty of his movies while only seeing maybe three or four of them.)

And because this is my column and I can do whatever I want, that’s all I’m going to say about his latest movie. J

On the other hand, you can read more about the movie and its box office prospects over on The Beat!

GRETA (Focus Features)

Directed by Neil Jordan (Too many movies to list them all.) Written by Ray Wright and Neil Jordan Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Isabelle Huppert, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea MPAA Rating: R

This week’s other new wide release is a high-concept psychological thriller from Ireland’s Neil Jordan which stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a young New Yorker who finds a purse on the subway that belongs to a Greta Hideg, played by the effervescent Isabelle Huppert. I think some people will enjoy this movie more than others, although as you can read in my review below, I was rather disappointed by it. I have a feeling that this will get a “C” (or lower) CinemaScore, too.

Mini-Review: In what seems to be a genre that’s making a comeback, Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan returns with his most sellable (i.e. obvious) premise in a long time, pairing two strong actors in a fairly mundane thriller.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Frances, a new New Yorker working as a waitress, who finds a purse on the subway belonging to a Greta Hideg (Huppert), politely bringing the older woman the purse. Having lost her mother a year prior, Frances at first finds a kindly substitute in Greta, but Greta starts to get clingierj, especially when Frances learns that leaving purses on subways is the way Greta finds new “friends.” As Frances tries to break off the relationship, Greta keeps showing up and her presence becomes more threatening.

To avoid spoilers, that’s probably all you need to know about the fairly basic plot that gets some credit for filming New York City as New York, complete with Greta’s NYC ID card

I’ve seen better work from Moretz, but it’s not like the role of Frances gives her much to do besides acting scared or freaked out, depending on the circumstances. By comparison, Huppert gives a delicious nutty performance as the title character, and it’s obvious she’s having fun behaving badly.  Possibly the biggest shocker of Greta is how great Maika Monroe is as Frances’ flaky and shallow roommate, who actually instills the film with a deliberate sense of humor rather than when you’re laughing at how weird it get.

Overall, the writing isn’t great and whoever composed the score goes so overboard with some of the cues, you might find yourself wondering whatever happened to subtlety?

Some things work, for sure, but much of the movie just seems to be so overwrought with Moretz overreacting to everything, and it’s clear Jordan was trying to make something more mainstream to feel pertinent again after a series of odder arthouse offerings.

Greta is fairly ridiculous and blatantly obvious, and frankly, don’t we deserve more or at least a little better from an Isabelle Huppert film?

Rating: 6/10

A last minute addition here: Since the Oscars were on Sunday, a number of theaters whose movies won prizes will re-expand the movies, some of them with new material. For instance, Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born is being rereleased with 12 minutes of new music after “Shallow” won Best Original song, while Universal will likely expand Green Book into more theaters and Sony will do the same with Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Granted, two of these are already available via home video, but they’re also worth seeing in theaters, and I might actually go see A Star is Born a third time.

LIMITED RELEASES

This is actually a fairly decent weekend for foreign fare with films by auteurs from Germany, Iceland, Austria, France and England, but the movie I’m most excited about is APOLLO 11 (Neon), the new documentary from Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13). If you were a fan of Damien Chazelle’s First Man (or even if you’re not), when it comes to space travel, the first Moon landing in 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin is still one of the greatest moments in history. With their historic trip to the Moon hitting its 50thanniversary in July, Miller has gone through never-before-seen footage and audio that’s been sitting in the National Archives to assemble an amazing film that tells the story using the REAL footage and audio to tell the story.  Apollo 11 will open exclusively on IMAX screens for one week only – I certainly will be seeing it again in this format -- and then expand nationwide on March 8.  I was able to see this before its premiere at Sundance in January, and it’s already become one of my favorite movies of the year.

Easily one of the finest German filmmakers making movies these days, Christian Petzold returns with his new film TRANSIT (Music Box Films), a loose adaptation of Anna Seghers’ 1942 novel “Transit Visa” starring Happy End star Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer from Frantz and Never Look Away. Franz plays Georg, a German expat living in Marseille among refugees who falls for the mysterious Marie (Beer) whose husband has disappeared with Georg taking his identity. I’m not quite sure that what Petzold was trying to do with this, especially with the decision to set the story in present day despite clearly being a story set in Nazi-occupied with Georg having escaped from the concentration camps, but he set the story in modern-day France. I can understand that Petzold might not have wanted to do another WWII set story after the excellent Phoenix, but he seems to be reaching here, and I’m not sure the idea worked. It probably also didn’t help that I had just rewatched two far superior films about immigrants made in the ‘40s, The Third Man and Casablanca, as bookends to seeing Transit for the first time. I think some might like this better than I did, and if you’re a fan of Petzold’s previous work, you can see this in New York at the IFC Centerand Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Another fine filmmaker with a new movie this week is England’s Michael Winterbottom, who returns with the crime-thriller THE WEDDING GUEST (IFC Films), starring Dev Patel. It’s the filmmaker’s second film made in India after 2011’s Trishna, starring Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed, and now he’s working with the other Slumdog Millionaire star. Patel plays a man hired to kidnap a woman who is about to get married (played by the smokin’ hot Radhika Apte), but things don’t exactly go as planned. It’s a slow-moving, moody film that once again shows off what an amazing actor Patel has become, something that continues into the real-life thriller Hotel Mumbai released later this month. This ALSO opens at the IFC Center.

French filmmaker Gaspar Noë returns with another strange movie, this one called CLIMAX (A24), which follows a French dance troupe as they start to go insane after having a party in which the alcohol is spiked with acid. I generally like Noë’s films, especially Irreversible and Into the Void, but this one goes off the rails quite a bit without being nearly as edgy or perverse as his previous work.  I’m not sure if this is just more

From Iceland comes Benedikt Erlingsson’s WOMAN AT WAR (Magnolia), an amazing film starring Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir in a dual role. First, she plays 50-year-old Halla, a woman who has been involved as an environmental activist in vandalism and outright sabotage until she learns that her request to adopt a little girl from the Ukraine has been accepted, forcing her to rethink her life choices. Geirharðsdóttir also plays Halla’s twin sister who gets pulled into her sister’s machinations. I saw Iceland’s Oscar entry a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially Geirharðsdóttir’s performance and that Erlingsson doesn’t try to make this too serious of a drama by including a score performed by a band that appears in random scenes. A Woman at War also opens in New York at the IFC Center and Landmark 57th, as well as in a few theaters in California. You can see the full release schedule on the Official Magnolia site.

And then, there’s Austrian filmmaker Wolfgang Fischer’s STYX (Film Movement), which will open onWednesday at the Film Forum, another one-woman film starring Susanne Wolff as a doctor sailing on her own when she encounters a sinking boat full of refugees. She calls for help but is told to sail away but she instead takes in one of the refugees who falls overboard. This is an amazing film, one that will inevitably be compared to Robert Redford and Chandor’s All is Lost because so much is focused on Wolff’s performance, but it’s an extremely timely film in terms of what’s going on in the world today and much more effective than Transit in that respect.

After premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, Ondi Timoner’s biodrama MAPPLETHORPE (Samuel Goldwyn), starring Matt (Doctor Who) Smith as the famed and often controversial New York City photographer, is finally opening. I remember generally liking this, especially the performance by newcomer Marianne Rendón as a young Patti Smith, and I hope Timoner, who has made some fantastic docs over the years, will continue making forays into narrative films like this. Mapplethorpe opens in New York at the Cinépolis Chelsea and at the Landmark Nuart in L.A. with director Ondi Timoner in person for QnAs on Friday and Saturday night at the latter.

Fresh from its premiere as part of the midnight section of Sundance and a month-long run on DirecTV, Lee Cronin’s directorial debut The Hole in the Ground (A24/DirecTV) involves a mother and her young son Chris moving to a home in the Irish countryside next to a forest that hides a sinkhole. When Chris vanishes than reappears, his mother thinks that it might not be her son at all. (So basically, it’s a rip-off of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.) 

Opening in quite a few theaters across the country is one of my favorite actors, Michelle Monaghan, as immigration attorney Judy Wood in Sean Hanish’s Saint Judy (Blue Fox Entertainment). Wood fought for immigration rights by defending a woman being persecuted by the Taliban in a case that changed American asylum laws, while at the same time also juggling life as a single mother. Also starring Common, Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard and Peter Krause, it’s getting a fairly decent release into roughly 100 theaters this weekend.

I also haven’t had a chance to watch Danishka Esterhazy’s LEVEL 16 (Dark Sky Films) yet, but I was intrigued by the trailer I saw at the Alamo a few weeks back. It involves a girls’ school called the Vestalis Academy, who put its students through rigorous training to become a “clean girl.” The ultimate level of training is (you guessed it) Level 16. The film focuses on Vivien (Katie Douglas from Every Day) who runs into a former friend Sophia (Celina Martin) with whom she shares a dark past. It’s playing in select theaters on Friday including a special screening at the Alamo Brooklyn on Saturday night at 10pm as a former Fantastic Fest selection. It will also pay the Alamos in Yonkers, Houston, Austin, as well as in Columbus, Ohio and a few select cities, as well as on VOD.

Opening at the Angelika in New York and then in L.A. and other cities March 8 is Keith Behrman’s Giant Little Ones (Vertical), a coming-of-age story starring Josh Wiggins and Darren Mann as high school besties whose lives are changed forever after an incident at the former’s 17thbirthday party. The film also stars Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan.

Two years after Sharkwater director Rob Stewart’s death while filming his final project Sharkwater Expedition, the doc will be released by Freestyle into select cities. In the film, Stewart was following and exposing the billion-dollar illegal shark fin industry, travelling from West Africa to Spain to Panama, Costa Rica and France.

Joe Sill’s Stray (Screen Media) stars Karen Fukuhara (Suicide Squad) as an orphaned teen who teams with a detective (Christine Woods) in trying to find her mother’s murderer, discovering a supernatural force in the bargain. The film also stars Japanese pop star Miyavi and Ross Partridge. Select cities and On Demand.

Stephen Portland’s psychological horror film Something opens at the Cinema Village in New York and the Laemmle Music Hall in L.A. Friday before its VOD/Digital release next Tuesday. It stars Michael Gazin and Jane Rowen as a young couple trying to deal with life as new parents who suspect a stranger is watching their home.

Lastly, we have the Brazilian horror hit Cannibal Club (Uncork’d Entertainment) deemed by some as the “goriest film in years” about a wealthy Brazilian couple who eat their employees. It opens in theaters Friday and On Demand March 5.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

If you’re in New York City, there’s a couple options for movie-watching, including the 9TH ANNUAL ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL, an amazing grassroots woman-run festival dedicated to showcasing women filmmakers and female-centric films. This year’s opening night film is Julia Hart’sFast Color starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a woman with superhuman powers., but some of the other films being screened are Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex, The Favourite, the docs What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael and On Her Shoulders and many more. I still haven’t made it to the festival mainly because it’s just too far uptown.

On top of that, The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents its annual RENDEZVOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA, running from Feb. 28 through March 10 and featuring some of the finest films from France, many of which might never get U.S. distribution.  Opening Night is the NY Premiere of Pierre Salvadori’s The Trouble with You, and there’s lots of new films from the likes of Bruno Dumont (Coincoin and the Extra-Humans), Mikhaël Hers (Amanda), Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Ouizo) (Keep an Eye Out!), the amazing Mia Hansen-Love (Maya), Louis-Julien Petit’s Invisiblesand lots more! I rarely know where to begin with the festival, but there’s always a few gems in there.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming on Netflix Friday is Chiwetel Ejiofor’s directorial debut THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND, based on the true story of William Kamkwamba, a 13-year-old Malawi boy who comes with an inventive way to end famine in his African village. The movie premiered at Sundance and recently opened the 22ndNew York International Children’s Film Festival, but unfortunately, I haven’t seen it.  

Also, HBO will air the controversial two-part Michael Jackson doc Leaving Neverland on Sunday and Monday nights. Again, haven’t seen it, so can’t add too much beyond what’s already out there.

(I’m going to ditch this section altogether if some of the publicists working on these movies don’t make more of an effort to get me screeners or invite me to screenings. I’m not PAID to go to so much effort to promote these films.)

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Celebrating some of the work of the Chinese filmmaker who died last April, this weekend sees the start of Ringo Lam X3 featuring three of the master’s films: 1992’s Full Contact (which I saw for the first time this past weekend, and it wasn’t great), 1987’s City on Fire and Prison on Fire, all three of them starring Chow Yun-Fat. On Friday night, The Academy will present a new 4k restoration of Billy Wilder’s 1959 comedy classic Some Like It Hot, which will screen all weekend. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film Weekend, while the Playtime: Family Matinees offering is Tim Burton’s 1988 classic Beetlejuice, starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

What’s quickly becoming the best reason to live in L.A. is the amazing repertory programming at the Tarantino-owned New Beverly. This week sees double features of Operation Mad Ball (1957) and Good Neighbor Sam (1964), both starring Jack Lemmon, on Weds and Thursday; the rockin’ double feature of Let the Good Times Roll (1973) and American Hot Wax (1978) on Friday and Saturday; and then a Gidget double feature of Gidget Goes to Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) on Sunday and Monday. The weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is Tim Hunter’s Sylvester (1985) starring Melissa Gilbert, while the midnight offerings are Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1 on Friday and The Kentucky Fried Movie on Saturday.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

As part of its series Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures, celebrating the filmmaker and the Adina Hoffman’s new biography of him, MOMI is showing Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) on Friday, Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld (1927) – which will include a book signing by Hoffman -- and Hecht’s own films* Crime Without Passion (1934) and The Scoundrel  (1935) on Saturday, Howard Hawks’ Twentieth Century (1934), and Otto Preminger’sWhere the Sidewalk Ends (1950). This month’s Fist and Swordoffering is Lu Yang’s Brotherhood of Blades II from 2017. As part of MOMI’s ongoing tribute to the recently-departed Jonas Mekas, they’ll show the filmmaker and Anthology Film Archives co-founder’s 1964 film The Brig a few times over the weekend.

*Apparently, these movies were filmed at the Astoria-based Paramount studio where MOMI now resides. How cool is that?

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Henry-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 doc The Mystery of Picasso (Milestone Films) will premiere at the Film Forum in a new 4k restoration on Friday, showing the master painter at work. The Film Forum is also starting a new month-long series Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture, curated by Bret Wood. This weekend’s offerings are Narcotic (1933), Mom and Dad  (1945) and 1938’s Child Bride. One of my all-time favorite comedies, Stanley Kramer’s star-studded 1963 film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World will screen as part of Film Forum Jr. on Saturday and Sunday.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

The Luchino Visconti: Cinematic Nobility series continues on Wednesday with Bellissima  (1951), screening with “The Job,” a 55-minute segment from the 1962 anthology film Boccacio ’70. Thursday is a double feature of White Nights  (1957) and The Witches  (1967), Friday screens1960’s Rocco and His Brothers, and Saturday is a double feature of Conversation Piece  (1974) and The Innocent  (1975) with Burt Lancaster’s daughter Joanna Lancaster appearing in person to answer questions about the former.

AERO  (LA):

The Aero’s Hitchcock, Truffaut and Jones (as in the Film Society’s Kent Jones, who made a documentary about the two filmmakers?!?) begins on Friday with a double feature of Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Hitchcock’s Rope  (1948). Saturday is Jules and Jim (1962) and 1964’s Marnie, while Sunday sees a double feature of The 39 Steps (1935) and Confidentially Yours  (1983). No word on whether Kent Jones will be in attendance but the two filmmakers won’t be. Also on Sunday, as part of the series Albert Finney Remembered, the Aero will show the 1982 John Huston musical Annie.  

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

The George Romero retrospective Living with the Dead: The Films of George Romerocontinues with Diary of the Deadon Weds, Survival of the Deadon Thursday, Stephen King’s The Dark Halfon Friday, Creepshowon Saturday and both Knight Ridersand Martin (1978) on Sunday, as well as the 3D version of Dawn of the Dead. I’ll be seeing Martin if anyone needs to find me.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: The Feds shows a 35mm print of the John Woo action-thriller Face/Off (1977)starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, as well as Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables  (1987), Weekend Classics: Early Godard presents the master’s 1965 film Alphaville, while Late Night Favorites for the weekend is David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, David Fincher’s Se7en AND once again, Ridley Scott’s Alien.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The West Village theater is still showing Joan Micklin Silver’s 1977 movie Between the Lines through the weekend. Also, the Quad will premiere a 4k restoration of Christopher Munch’s The Hours and Times  (1992), which looks at a trip John Lennon (Ian Hart) and Beatles manager Brian Epstein (David Angus) took to Barcelona in April 1963.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This Friday’s midnight movie is Takashi Miike’s Audition  (1999) – can’t believe that came out 20 years ago now!

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Sir Sidney Poitier ends on Thursday with 1965’s A Patch of Bluewith Wednesday showing 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun.

And that’s it for this week. Next week, Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel!