#especially when their taking Movie!Percy like the boy has like three scenes and barely does anything the hell do you mean

[elisedonut]

Every time i see "Percy was annoying tho" or anything similar my brain is just immediately like

But was he really?

or do you just take his family's word/Harry's opinion as gospel

[pls-let-me-out]

The Selection

For thirthy-five youngers, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince William.

But for Niccolò Jackson, formerly di Angelo, being Selected is a nightmare. It means leaving his home to enter a fierce competition for a crown he doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks. Especially when he knows that his family has rebel affiliations. Just one slip as he talks of them, and he will be executed for treason. So, when he is chosen to participate, he has a simple plan: get in, don’t do absolutely anything to attract the Prince’s attention, and be sent home after the first week.

Of course, things start going down-hill since the first day.

 After saying good-bye to his younger sister Hazel, with the promise of writing, the last thing Nico wants to do is socializing with the other suitors. Not only would it be absolutely tiring, but he also finds it useless, as they are meant to be competitors for the same prize. None of them will cultivate any long-lasting relationship. Not that the others are too heartbroken to see him disappear, they have been eyeing him weirdly since he first set foot down the plane. He isn’t the one from the lowest cast, but most of the others are from the higher ones.

Nico is a Six, or has been so for the last few years. It’s the cast of workers. He doesn’t know how much of a background-check they’ve done at the Palace, how much the Prince actually knows about him. However, it has taken Nico exactly a look at the other two suitors from the lower castes (Elise, a Seven, a manual laborer; James, a fellow Six) to know that they are the charity cases. Every time a Selection is held, people from all castes (except Eights) are brought to the Palace, but it’s always clear that they won’t stay for long. They are often ignored by the other suitors and the Royals. It’s fine by Nico. He will be paid for staying a week.

The gardens are at least pretty. Nico has to admit as much. There’s a maze somewhere, which he doesn’t want to see even from afar, and old statues in white marble are scattered around. If Hazel were here, she would love the place. Nico finds it a bit overboard. There’s a golden plaque on the ground. Nico bends to read the descriptions.

“Forgive me,” someone says, and Nico almost jumps out of his skin. “Are you lost, sir?”

Nico turns around, hiding the cigarette behind himself. Useless, since it just makes the smoke come from behind him. The person he comes face to face with has widened blue eyes. Oh shit.

So much for not being noticed, Nico thinks. In complete silence, he stares at the Prince, and the Prince stares right back at him. Nico hopes that, if he gets away from the situation at hand quickly enough, the Prince will forget his face. Poor people probably look all the same to pricks like him, anyway.

“Hey!” The Prince exclaims, and a smile brightens his features. “You are one of the suitors, aren’t you? I’m Prince William, it’s nice to meet you.”

Prince William extends a hand, and Nico has to switch the cigarette in the other hand to shake it.

“Niccolò Jackson,” Nico says. Should he say that it’s nice to meet him? How is he supposed to know how to greet a Prince? He lets go of the Prince’s hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” the Prince continues. “However, shouldn’t you be socializing with the other suitors?”

Nico sighs. “It’s not really my scene. Sorry.” He shrugs.

“Oh.” The Prince rubs the back of his neck, looking around uncomfortably.

“You don’t have to stay,” Nico says. He craves peace and quiet, and he can’t get it when the whole reason he has been taken away from the family in the first place is right in front of him. “You can just go. I’m sure you have very important things to do.”

“I do, as a matter of fact. Greeting every suitor, for example.”

“Consider me greeted.” Nico nods one last time at the Prince, before giving him his back and inhaling the smoke of his cigarette. He really hopes they aren’t being filmed right now, or Sally will kick his ass once he gets home.

“I – you shouldn’t be smoking,” the Prince continues.

“Will you put me in jail if I do?”

The Prince seems even more taken aback, and Nico is starting to feel impatient. He wants to go home and sleep for the next few years, but he can’t, because of course he just had to be one of thirty-five idiots sorted from the whole kingdom. That’s just the kind of luck that follows him around these days.

“Well?” Nico asks again. “Will you put me in jail?”

“Of course no! But it’s bad for-”

“Bad for me, so mind your own business.”

And with that, Nico stomps away. They won’t even notice I’m there, Nico told Hazel before leaving, when she was still in bed with her hair wrapped in her scarf. I’ll be a shadow. I’ll sneak something out of the Palace for you, though. She laughed, until her lungs started burning again, and she got cut off by a heavy round of coughs.

 Nico shares his suite with a guy named something he can’t pronounce. He’s a Two, an actor. He informs Nico of that himself, and also asks whether Nico wants an autograph. It’s almost heartbreaking, how Nico has to inform him that he has never seen any of his movies.

“It must be such an upgrade for you,” the guy continues, from where he is perched on the sofa, watching him unpack through the open door of the bedroom. “Passing from being a Six to a Three. You know you will be a Three when this is all over, don’t you? Of course I will remain a Two, unless the Prince chooses me. Then I’d be a One. Don’t you find it so-?”

Nico doesn’t hear the rest. He closes the door, muttering something about taking a bath. He just sits on the bed, and lets the hours pass. He doesn’t get out of his room until it’s dinner time, when they are brought food into the suite. Actor-boy tells him that he will be dining with the girls in the next suite, and leaves Nico behind.

 The following day the suitors have breakfast together. Only one place is left vacant at the table, by the time food arrives.

“Is it for the Prince?” The girl next to him asks another. “Should we wait for him?”

The other shakes her head. “Oh, no. It’s for Drew Tanaka. She will be having breakfast with her family, though.”

Nico furrows his eyebrows, sipping his coffee quietly. Shouldn’t that not be allowed? They can keep their phones and contact their families, also post on social media, but they shouldn’t be traveling home. And does she intend on traveling home every day?

“Her father’s a lord,” the second girl responds. “Her family lives here.” She snorts. “Didn’t you research anything about the other suitors?”

“I didn’t think it was allowed.”

“And it isn’t,” a third girl says. She sighs. “Honestly. Just don’t talk about breaking the rules so openly at the breakfast table. You don’t even know who is listening.”

Nico feels her eyes on his face, but he doesn’t look up from his coffee. Once again, he wishes he were in his own home, even if it means having to deal with Percy and his obnoxiousness. Maybe he can stay just for a few days, thinking better about it.

When breakfast is over, they are brought to a circular room. The smell of flowers in there is almost nauseating, and Nico wishes he could open the windows. But Jasmine – the woman who showed them around yesterday – is already giving him weird looks. If he were to step closer to the window, she would probably think him in the middle of a robbery of windows. So he walks around the room while he waits for his turn, stopping every once in a while to admire the paintings on the walls.

“You aren’t a Five, are you?”

Nico almost jumps out of his skin. Again. This time at least it isn’t the Prince in front of him, but the third girl from the breakfast table. Nico shakes his head.

“Six,” he says. “But not only Fives can watch art, you know.”

“I guess,” she responds, shrugging a bare shoulder. The girls are wearing elegant dresses, and hers has a particularly large gown. Nico is in a suit, which he looks like an idiot in. “I’m Lou Ellen, Two.”

“Niccolò Jackson,” Nico says. “Six.”

“You already said that.”

Nico shrugs, without anything left to say. He turns back to the painting.

“You don’t look particularly happy to be here,” she continues. “Don’t you want to woo Will?”

Nico turns back to her. “Who’s Will?”

“Prince William.” She doesn’t hide a smile. “He’s a friend of mine. So, are you going to woo him?”

“That’s just the least my charming personality can do,” Nico replies. There’s a smudge of something in the corner of the painting, which is in equal measure disgusting for the viewers and horrifically disrespectful to the artist.

Lou Ellen laughs. “I guess so. Why are you here if you don’t think you can woo him?”

Nico shrugs. “Aren’t they paying us?”

“Chapeau,” Lou Ellen concedes. She takes a deep breath. “You don’t seem very interested in making friends.”

“That’s because we won’t be friends for long. Ten go away after this first week, or fifteen, I didn’t really read all that well. After that, everyone who has stayed will try their best to remain again, beat the others somehow. At some point, people will just be stabbing each other in the back.”

“Will you?”

Nico scoffs. “I won’t stay that long. Me, the other Six, and the girl from Seven. We are the three everyone is certain will leave after this week. We are placeholders.”

Lou Ellen is called in next. They’re going by order of the castes, so Nico is the third-last to go in. He finds the Prince seated at the round table, the breeze entering from the window is ruffling his blond hair. His lips are already pulled in a smile when Nico enters. It makes him shiver.

“Mr. Jackson,” the Prince says. “It’s very nice to see you again.”

The Prince gestures to the enormous teapot and the two empty mugs. There are also many types of sweets, and the lemon-cake Hazel likes so much. Just thinking of her has nostalgia blossom in Nico’s chest, and they have only been apart for a day.

“Are you glaring at the lemon cake?” The Prince asks.

Nico startles. He quickly sits at the free chair. “No.”

“Are you allergic?”

“No.” Nico clears his throat.

“May I offer you some tea?”

“I really despise tea,” Nico replies. He crosses his arms on the chest, leaning back. The Prince pours some for himself. “Also, isn’t it your thirty-third cup?”

The Prince smiles. “Yup. Believe it or not, there are people who enjoy a good cup of tea.”

“I can believe that, but thirty-three in a morning is a bit of a stretch. Won’t you get indigestion or something?”

“Is that a threat?”

“From the one who thought that it would be alright to let you drink thirty-three cups of tea in a morning, maybe,” Nico replies. He grins. “Not for the poor soul who is just the witness. Should I tell the thirty-fifth to let you take a toilet break?”

The Prince laughs. “I really hope you know we are being filmed, and this is a live-stream.”

Nico taps his foot on the ground. He isn’t used to being on camera anymore, although Hazel often posts short videos in which he also appears on her profiles on social media. He doesn’t have to talk in those, though.

“You really know how to put people at ease,” Nico comments. “What are you going to tell me next, that your parents are watching in the next room, ready to intervene if I ask you too much about your toilet habits?”

“They only intervene if you are unreasonably sarcastic.”

“That’s a very charming and fancy way of telling me to shut up.”

“Oh dear – tell me you aren’t one of those eat the royal folks.”

“Didn’t you run a background check on me or something?”

“Well, yes, but I wasn’t shown any of that,” the Prince admits. He shrugs. “So, uh. I don’t know much about you.”

Nico nods, and stares at the table. It’s covered by a really horrible, red and golden tablecloth. It’s exactly the type of thing Nico should have expected to find in the Palace.

“Cool,” Nico says.

“What’s cool?”

Not this tablecloth. He doesn’t say that. “Not much.”

The Prince nods. “Alright.” He clears his throat.

There’s a long, awkward silence. Nico should deal better with awkward, really. That’s all conversations ever are with him. There are stilted words, long, stretching silences. He wishes the ground would open under him.

“How much longer do I have to stay?” Nico finally asks.

“Where?”

In this hellish hole. “Here. Now. In the tea-room, I mean.”

“We should go for a walk,” the Prince says.

“Not together, right?”

“Ah.”

“I mean, no offense, but this is frankly embarrassing,” Nico says. He leans forward in his seat. “I just really need a cigarette.”

“I’ve never smoked one.”

“I really hope you aren’t trying to get one of mine.”

“I was just trying to make conversation.”

And the Prince makes a strange kind of puppy eyes, which Nico has only ever seen Hazel make. And Percy, occasionally, but his just annoy Nico to an unbelievable level.

“So, what do you do in your free-time?” Nico blurts out, hoping to erase the Prince’s eyes.

“Oh, I study,” the Prince says. “I really enjoy reading, and learning in general. I particularly enjoy Philosophy, which I usually study on my own. I have tutors, of course. Although at the moment I am having some problems with Physics. I have also tried studying French a couple of years back, but I wasn’t really good at that. It was just so horrible.”

“Learning French sucks,” Nico concedes, thinking back to his own struggles with the language. “But not as much as learning Latin.”

“You know Latin?”

Nico shrugs. He shouldn’t have said that, should he? The Prince has already said that he doesn’t know much of his background, so maybe he also doesn’t know that Nico hasn’t always been a Six. Hell, he wasn’t even always called Niccolò Jackson.

“I know Ancient Greek.”

Nico nods. “Sounds fancy.” He doesn’t say that he knows that, too.

The Prince almost seems to be having problems controlling all his energy. His finger curl and uncurl around the armrests of the chair. His gaze shifts more than once to the windows and the gardens. When Nico follows his eyes, he doesn’t see anything, though.

A bell rings, startling the Prince out of his reverie.

“It seems that our time is up,” the Prince says.

The Prince stands, and Nico does the same, giving him an even-more-than-awkward nod, and turning to leave.

“It was really nice meeting you!” The Prince continues, when Nico’s hand is already on the doorknob.

Nico turns back, to give him a tight-lipped smile, catching the Prince empty the mug of tea out of the window. It startles a laugh out of him. The Prince turns, his eyes widened at having been caught in the act. His cheeks dust in red, and it only makes Nico laugh harder.

“So you aren’t poisoning yourself with thirty-five cups of tea, only the soil outside,” he says. “Good to know.”

“It’s considered polite to offer people tea,” the Prince replies smoothly.

Nico’s smile tightens. “Well, let me tell you, Your Highness, maybe the Twos, Threes, maybe even Fours or Fives, care about drinking tea and making small talk. Sixes and Sevens? We don’t really care whether you stuff yourself in tea and lemon cakes. Actually, most people from home would probably much rather you not waste so much food when everyone has already been served plentiful breakfast.” Nico makes a mocking wave with his hand. “With your gracious permission.”

He doesn’t slam the door behind himself, even if his cheeks are red and his ears ring. Sally should be proud of him, honestly.

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND January 25, 2019  - The Kid Who Would Be King, Serenity

(Yes, I realize the weekend just ended for most, but hey, might as well get an early crack at NEXT weekend, huh? January is winding down with what’s going to be seem like a fairly boring weekend after last week’s M. Night Shyamalan sequel disappointing when compared to the sensation of Dragon Ball Super: Brolly, a movie that few movie writers knew about before Wednesday but grossed $21 million in six days. But hey, variety is the spice of life, and the two movies opening wide this week certainly add some spice with a duo of films from reputable British writer/directors.

THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING  (20thCentury Fox)

Written and directed by Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) Cast: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Angus Imrie, Tom Taylor, Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart, Rhianna Doris, Denise Gough MPAA Rating: PG

On the one hand, this action-adventure film is an exciting one, because it’s the second feature from Joe Cornish following his astonishing 2011 debut Attack the Block, but also, because it’s Cornish’s first studio feature for a mainstream audience, geared towards family audiences in particular.

It’s a fairly standard take on the King Arthur mythos with a young British lad (played by Andy Serkis’ son) finding Excalibur, the legendary sword in the stone and having to team with his best friend (and a couple school bullies) to take on the return of Morgana le Fey (Rebecca Ferguson).

It seems like a good idea to get kids, especially young boys, interested in the tales of King Arthur even though the last few movies have bombed as neither Guy Ritchie’s 2017 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword or the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced 2004 movie King Arthur found much of an audience. In fact, trying to bring any British legend to the screen and get American moviegoers interested might be a fool’s errand, as seen by last year’s Robin Hood bomb.

The thing is that other than Patrick Stewart – star of Fox’s ongoing X-Men franchise, which seems to be in limbo these days -- and Rebecca Ferguson from the last couple Mission: Impossible movies, there are no stars in the movie that could entice those on the fence about whether to see this movie.  On the other hand, reviews have generally been good which could help boost interest a little more going into the weekend.

At first, I thought maybe this would end up with around $10 million, but it’s basically going to be a family movie coming into a market where most other family films have been in theaters for three weeks or more. (Dragon Ball is an exception.) Fox was also able to get it into more than 3,4000 nationwide, because wisely, it waited until after Glass opened for this.  Because of this, I’m going to goose up my number to somewhere between $11 and 13 million with most of the family movies geared towards boys falling away and Joe Cornish’s older fans maybe giving this a look. Sadly, the movie is not being marketed as “from the director of Attack the Block” as it clearly should be.

Mini-Review: Granted that Attack the Block was always going to be a hard act to follow for Joe Cornish, and yet he has written and directed a follow-up that might appeal to younger moviegoers though maybe not so much Cornish’s older teen fans from his directorial debut.

Louis Ashbourne Serkis, who is indeed the son of Andy Serkis, plays Alex Elliot, a fairly normal 10-year-old, who stands up to a couple school bullies and while being chased by them finds a sword embedded in rock on a construction site. It is indeed the fabled “Sword in the Stone” Excalibur as used by King Arthur. Along with his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) and their two relentless bullies (Tom Taylor, Rhianna Doris), they all go on a quest to fight Arthur’s evil sister Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) and save Britain.

The first major hurdle this otherwise fine kids’ action-adventure faces is the fairly weak cast, because without liking Alex or his colleagues, it’s hard to root for them even with the stakes never feeling too great. The one exception is Angus Imrie as the young Merlin who somehow manages to get more laughs than the older Merlin, played by Sir Patrick Stewart. Alex’s mother is played by Claire Foy lookalike Denise Gough, and she also doesn’t bring much to what should have been touching scenes with Serkis. Ferguson is decent as Morgana, although the role doesn’t give her much to do.

Using many of the same creative team used by buddy and sometime producer Edgar Wright on Baby Driver, including DP Tim Pope and editors Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss, as well as production designer Marcus Rowland, it’s a safe bet that Cornish has made another movie that looks damn good.  As with Attack, Cornish’s FX team perfectly integrate the many CG beasties with the human characters.

The thing is that Cornish does a fine job with this material, so that the movie is better than the Percy Jackson movies or other similar family films, and he should be commended for making such a smooth transition to studio family films. Even so, by the third act, I was just getting very bored, especially when I thought it was ending, and it went on for another 15 minutes.

The Kid Who Would Be King is perfectly fine -- it has its moments -- but there’s something about it that left me wanting, because it seems like it should have been a lot better overall.

Rating: 6.5/10

SERENITY  (Aviron)

Written and directed by Steven Knight (Locke, Redemption, “Peaky Blinders,” “Taboo”) Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou  MPAA Rating: R

The other new release of the weekend is something that possibly could have done very well in the ‘90s or early ‘00s as an erotic thriller, a genre that has had its ups and downs but has mostly done decently at the box office. This is the third movie from Steven Knight, the director of Lockeand writer of Eastern Promises, “Peaky Blinders” and “Taboo,” though I’m not sure his previous hits will convince many to see this in theaters.

Matthew McConaughey plays fishing boat captain Baker Dill, who has been living in hiding on Plymouth Island after his divorce. His ex-wife Karen, played by Anne Hathaway, shows wanting her to kill her violent and abusive husband (Jason Clarke) in order to save her and Baker’s teen son.  

McConaughey’s career has been all over the place in recent years, but his recent crime-thriller White Boy Rick didn’t do very well, and it feels like Serenity is heading towards a similar fate. In fact, McConaughey has been in quite a string of bombs since winning an Oscar for 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club with his biggest hit being the animated Sing. His most high-profile movie The Dark Tower made $120 million worldwide based on $60 million budget which made it barely profitable but especially disappointing due to its studio’s franchise plans.

Having Anne Hathaway could help as she’s been a lot more careful about her choices since winning her own Oscar a year earlier with last year’s Ocean’s 8, in which she played herself,being a relative hit with almost $300 million worldwide. Her last movie with McConaughey was Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar in 2014, which grossed $188 million domestically, so that’s somewhat of a bonus. The cast is rounded out by the ever-present Jason Clarke, who has yet to really break-out despite being involved in many Oscar-caliber films, as well as Djimon Hounsou, who is becoming a superhero film regular, having just appeared in Aquaman and having roles in Captain Marveland Shazam.  (Some might remember that he also had a great scene with Chris Pratt early in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.)

While erotic thrillers have done well in the past, this movie was originally supposed to come out last September, and there was advertising trailers all summer – I know that because I saw the trailer for this in front of a ton of movies – but then it was moved to January, which is never a good sign of faith. This is a rare release from fledgling distributor Aviron Pictures, who released just two movies in 2018.  Aviron is releasing this one into just 2,500 theaters, which might already be too many screens considering how little marketing the film has

Reviews are still embargoed until Thursday (never a good sign), but I’m probably not going to review the movie, since I saw it quite some time ago, though I do have to say that that the big twist in this movie angered me more than anything in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass.

This movie looks like the epitome of a late January bomb, one that probably won’t come close to $10 million for the weekend and might even end up closer to $5 million or a little more. Either way, it won’t have to make that much to end up in the top 5 this weekend since it’s going up against many movies that have been playing since before Christmas.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Glass   (Universal) - $19 million -53%

2. The Kid Who Would Be King  (20thCentury Fox) - $11.6 million N/A

3. The Upside (STX) – $10 million -33%

4. Serenity (Aviron) - $6.5 million N/A

5. Aquaman (Warner Bros.)  - $5.5 million -47%

6. Dragon Ball Super: Brolly (Funimation) – $5 million -49%

7. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse  (Sony) - $4.8 million -37%

8. A Dog’s Way Home  (Sony) – $4.2 million -42%

9. Mary Poppins Returns  (Disney) - $3.1 million -45%

10. Escape Room  (Sony) - $2.8 million -46%

LIMITED RELEASES

Many of my colleagues will be heading to the Sundance Film Festival this week, but I’m not going, so I don’t have much to say about it. Sorry!

On a more local level , we get  FIAF ANIMATION FIRST FEST over the weekend, focused on the booming French animation film industry with a 20thanniversary screening of Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress and 17 US  and New York premieres, including the New York premiere of Funanand a number of shorts programs. Studio Ghibli’s Isao Takahata, who died last year, will be honored. You can read the full program and schedule of events Here.  I personally have never attended, but if I wasn’t busy I might check out some of the programs.

As far as the limited releases…

Following its November qualifying run as Germany’s Oscar entry and with two Oscar nominations under its belt, Oscar-winning filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s (The Lives of Others) new movie NEVER LOOK AWAY (Sony Pictures Classics). The historic drama is loosely based on the life of visual artist Gerhard Richter with Tom Schilling (Woman in Gold) playing a young artist who has watched East Berlin go from Nazi occupation, watching his older sister be sentenced to death due to her mental illness by a ruthless Nazi doctor (Sebastian Koch), to falling in love with a young woman (Paula Beer) who happens to be that doctor’s daughter and escaping to West Berlin during the country’s contemporary art movement.  I found the movie to be overly long and a little confusing, because I wasn’t sure what the movie was supposed to be about until about 30 minutes into it.  

Just a few months after his last film The Mercy barely got a glance, The Theory of Everything director James Marsh’s new heist film  KING OF THIEVES (Saban Films) will open in theaters (including New York’s Cinema Village) and on VOD and Digital HD on Friday. The true crime tale about a group of retired crooks trying to stage an elaborate jewelry heist stars an ensemble of legendary British actors in Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Ray Winstone, Tom Courtenay along with Charlie Cox aka Daredevil. I had high hopes for this movie being better than the likes of Zach Braff’s Going in Style, something classier like last year’s The Old Man and the Gun, but sadly, it’s an obvious money grab for older British men and women reminiscing about all the better crime movies made by the cast.

Claus Räfle’s docudrama THE INVISIBLES (Greenwich) follows four German-Jewish youth who decide to stay behind in Berlin as World War II is beginning, living vicariously while dodging Nazi officials before eventually joining the resistance.  This story of survival opens at New York’s Quad Cinema and Landmark 57, as well as in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal on Friday.

The Brazilian animated film TITO AND THE BIRDS  (Shout! Studios) from filmmakers Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto tells the story of a boy and his father who are looking for the cure for an illness inflicted on someone after being scared. After playing a number of film festivals, it also opens at the Quad Cinema in New York

It’s hard to believe that 88-year-old French New Wave filmmaker Jean Luc Goddard is still with us and making movies, but all the recent repertory series in New York and L.A. have been leading up to his latest film THE IMAGE BOOK (Kino Lorber). Don’t know much about this film which received a special Palme d’or at Cannes last year, but apparently it’s a “collage film essay,” which means that it probably doesn’t have a plot or narrative that’s easy to explain. It opens at the IFC Center and Lincoln Center in New York.

Tom Arnold and Sean Astin star in Ron Carlson’s Dead Ant (Cinedigm) as the members of an ‘80s hair metal band called Sonic Grave who had a power ballad hit 30 years earlier, and while they’re on a road trip to Coachella, they find themselves trying to be relevant again…. Until they’re attacked by giant killer ants. Okay, I think I need to see this movie, as it seems like my kind of movie.

Playing for one night only nationwide on Thursday as a Fathom Event is Timothy Woodward Jr.’s horror film The Final Wish (Cinedigm), starring the wonderful Lin Shaye (Insidious), Michael Welsh, Melissa Bolona and Tony Todd, and produced by Jeffrey Reddic (writer/producer of Final Destination).  Welsh plays Aaron Hammond who returns to his hometown after the death of his father to help his bereaved mother (Shaye) and deal with the demons from his past, finding a mysterious item while going through his father’s belongings.

Opening at New York’s Cinema Village on Friday and at L.A.’s Laemmle Music Hall on Feb. 1 is Francois Margolin’s controversial French drama Jihadists (Cinema Libre), co-directed by by Lemine Ould Salem, which was banned in France. It follows two filmmakers who were given access to fundamentalist clerics of Sunni Islam to show what it’s like to live your life under jihadi rule.

From Bollywood comes Vikas Bahl ‘s drama Super 30 (Reliance Entertainment), starring Hrithik Roshan as Patna-based mathematician Anand Kumar, who runs the famed and prestigious Super 30 program in Patna. Not sure of the theater count but it’s probably opening in a dozen or so theaters.

Opening on Wednesday following its premiere at Doc-NYC is Robert Townsend’s doc The 5 Browns: Digging through the Darkness, which looks at the 5 Browns, a group of Julliard-trained sibling pianists who rose to stardom only to be devastated when it’s revealed that the three sisters were sexually abused by their manager father Keith Brown. It opens at the IFC Center for a single-week run.

Also opening at the Cinema Village and in select cities is John Kauffman’s Heartlock (Dark Star Pictures), a love story about a female prison guard, played by Lesley-Ann Brandt,  who becomes the subject of affection from a charming male convict (Alexander Dreymo) who wants to use their relationship to help him escape.

STREAMING

The main film streaming on Netflix on Friday is Jonas Akerlund’s POLAR, his follow-up to Lords of Chaos, which premiered at Sundance last year and comes out a few weeks later. Based on the Dark Horse graphic novel, it stars Mads Mikkelson as assassin Duncan Vizla, known as the Black Kaiser, who is getting ready for retirement in a suburban town when he’s dragged back into one last job, but when it goes wrong, Duncan’s new love interest (Vanessa Hudgens) is dragged into it. I’ve never read the graphic novel, and I’ve generally been mixed on Akerlund’s films, but this one is definitely in the same absolute insanity realm of his earlier film Spun with a lot of crazy over-the-top performance from the likes of Matt Lucas (Little Britain) and Johnny Knoxville (Jackass), but in this case, it’s not a good thing. Mikkelson gives another stellar performance, and Hudgens is also quite good (didn’t even recognize her) but the craziness surrounding them from Lucas and the other assassins sent after Duncan made it hard to enjoy the film, especially compared to Mikkelson’s other upcoming film Arctic, but hey, it’s on Netflix so I’m sure people will watch it anyway.

Speaking of which, I also want to note that last week, I didn’t notice that a science fiction film called IO: Last on Earth, starring Margaret Qualley (Novitiate),was also streaming on Netflix. I haven’t watched it yet, but one of the writers also co-wrote Claire Carée’s Embers, which is one of my favorite festival discoveries from the past few years.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph has a couple new series starting Friday, including Hou Hsiao-Hsien in the 21st Century, featuring 35mm prints of four of the Chinese filmmaker’s recent films: Millenium Mambo, Three Times, Flight of the Red Balloon and Café Lumieré. Then on Saturday, the Metrograph will show the classic Gone with the Windto kick off its Produced by David O. Selznick series, and there’s some great stuff to come, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellboundand Rebecca.  The theater will also be screening a 35mm of Ken Loach’s 1991 film Riff Raff, starring Robert Carlyle, who would breakout in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. On top of that, Kay Francis: Queen of Pleasure continues with William Dieterle’s Jewel Robbery (1932) and 1929’s The Cocoanuts this weekend, while this weekend’s Late Nites at Metrograph  option is Chantal Akerman’s News from Home  (1977) and Playtime: Family Matinees shows the 2015 animated film Shaun the Sheep.

THE NEW BEVERLY  (L.A.):

Weds. and Thurs. see double features of the 1977 film The Late Show and ‘78’s The Big Fix, starring Richard Dreyfuss. Friday sees a double feature of American Graffiti  (1973) and The Lords of Flatbush  (1974) with More American Graffiti (1979) added on Saturday… for just 10 bucks!The weekend family matinee is 1947’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Danny Kaye.  The Sunday/Monday Franco Zeffirelli double feature is Romeo & Juliet (1968) with Brother Sun, Sister Moon  (1972). Tarantion’s Jackie Brownonce again plays at midnight Friday and the Tuesday Grindhouse triple feature is Katt Shea’s Poison Ivy  (1992), Streets (1990) and Stripped to Kill  (1987), which is already sold out online but may have more tickets at the door.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Far Out in the 70s: A New Wave of Comedy, 1969 - 1979 continues with La Cage Aux Folles and The Seduction of Mimi on Wednesday, double features of Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and Theater of Blood on Thursday, Woody Allen’s Sleeper and Bananas on Friday, then Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Saturday, and Papermoon, What’s Up, Doc? starring Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam on Sunday. As part of the series focusing on the great filmmaker and actor Elaine May, Film Forum will show A New Leaf (1971) and Mickey and Nicky (1976) next Tuesday. The weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Gordon Parks’ 1969 film The Learning Tree.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Beginning another fun series of double features this weekend with Argento/De Palma with a double feature of Suspiria and Carrie on Thursday, Blow Out and Inferno on Friday, and Dressed to Kill and Tenebrae on Saturday. Saturday sees a special presentation of Craig Owen’s The Silent Film Era at the Alexandria Hotel, while the 1916 Douglas Fairbanks film His Picture in the Papers will also screen on Saturday with live music accompaniment.

AERO  (LA):

The AERO is offering an eclectic mixed bag of films this weekend including the 4k restoration of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987; Janus Films) on Friday night, David Fincher’s Fight Club  on Saturday, and the WC Fields comedy My Little Chickadee (1940) on Sunday night.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Continuing the theater’s attempt to keep up with ‘90s Cinemax with its X-rated fare, Just Jaekin’s erotic drama Emmanuelle (Kino Lorber; 1974) will screen in a special engagement, leading up to next week’s Beyond Emmanuelle Just Jaeckin retrospective and Erotic Journeys: The Many Faces of Em(m)anuelle. 

IFC CENTER (NYC):

On Friday and Saturday at midnight, the IFC Center will show the 4k restoration of Dario Argento’s Suspiria as part of its Late Night Favorites series. While The Image Book opens here on Friday, Weekend Classics: Early Godard  continues with a 35mm print of A Woman is a Woman  (1961) and Waverly Midnights: The Feds screens Michael Mann’s Manhunter(with Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal coming in the next two weekends!)

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday night’s midnight screening is the Rocky Horror Picture Show follow-up Shock Treatment (1981).

MOMA (NYC):

This week’s Modern Matinees: Sir Sidney Poitier offerings are A Patch of Blue  (1965) on Weds, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! (1970) Thurs, and No Way Out  (1950) on Friday. MOMA is also screening Ida Lupino’s Never Fear (The Young Lovers) (1950) to end its 16th annual To Save and Project series, although there’s a couple second screenings for those (like me) who only just found out about it now.

That’s it for this week… next week, it’s February! Already?? While many movie writers are still at Sundance and others are preparing for Super Bowl Sunday, Sony releases the crime-thriller remake Miss Bala.