Tag Archives: A24 movies

New In Theaters

Party Over Oops, Out of Time

Leave a comment

Y2K

by George Wolf

Who can forget those crazy few years when people like my Mom were buying books called “Time Bomb 2000,” and then it struck midnight on 12/31/99 and…nothing much happened.

With Y2K, director and co-writer Kyle Mooney reimagines that New Year’s Eve as a night when plenty happens. The double zero year wreaks technological havoc that’s even worse than the doomsayers warned, and a bunch of teenage New York partygoers have to fight for their lives while reminding us about everything 90s.

Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) are lifelong BFFs (“the Sticky Boys!”) but pretty low on the high school status bar. Eli pines for the pop-u-lar Laura (Rachel Zegler), and figures the big NYE party that they’re not really invited to might be his best chance to steal a midnight smooch.

So the Sticky Boys crash. But what the F? The start of a new millenium instantly turns everyday tech into killing machines, and bodies start piling up with a succession of comical blood-splatter.

Mooney co-wrote the underrated Brigsby Bear in 2017, but Y2K marks his first directing effort. He also joins the cast as a relentlessly upbeat hippie stoner, adding to the film’s array of characters who are sufficiently amusing inside some usual high schooler stereotypes.

And as the kids head out across Brooklyn looking for a safe haven, Mooney plays with zombie outbreak tropes while Fred Durst has some fun sending up his own image. There are laughs to be had before things get overly silly, but Mooney finds his groove by serving up plenty of nostalgic callbacks that will hit 90s kids in the feels and give the older viewers some knowing smiles and head nods.

I mean, remember how long it used to take just to burn one freaking compact disc?

New In Theaters

Trust the Process

1 Comment

Sing Sing

by George Wolf

Learn a bit about the genesis of A24’s Sing Sing, and you’d be tempted to view it as some sort of social experiment, a project where success is defined just by completing the assignment.

But to see the film is to witness a filmmaking vision brought to transcendent life by director/co-writer Greg Kwedar, and a tremendous ensemble cast that features many formerly incarcerated members of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing maximum security prison.

Inspired by a 2005 article in Esquire magazine, the film brings us inside the RTA theatre troupe led by drama teacher Brent Buell (Paul Raci, Oscar nominee for Sound of Metal). Buell’s star pupil is John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), who is serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for manslaughter.

Via another endlessly sympathetic and award-worthy performance from Domingo, Whitfield comes to personify the soul-stirring effects of the RTA. As he meticulously prepares for one clemency hearing to the next, Whitfield throws himself into the work of the RTA troupe, and to mentoring a restless new member.

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (Maclin, playing himself in a debut of undeniable power) has his violent guard up at all times, but Whitfield slowly starts chipping away at the anger that consumes him. He urges Maclin to commit, “trust the process,” and allow himself to feel human again.

Whitfield also counsels Maclin on his own quest for parole, creating a compelling dual B story that adds even more resonance to a deeply emotional journey. Colman, Maclin and the stellar supporting players (including former inmate Sean Dino Johnson and Domingo’s longtime creative partner Sean San Jose) fill every scene with a raw authenticity that can be as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.

The film’s surface-level message of healing through the arts is well-played and well-earned, but a more universal subtext is never far from the spotlight. Sing Sing soars from the way it invests in the need for expression and inspiration, and in the very souls who found a path to redemption by stepping onstage.

New In Theaters

All You Ever Wanted

Leave a comment

Priscilla

by George Wolf

Even if you’ve never taken the tour at Graceland, the bare feet on shag carpeting that Sofia Coppola uses to open Priscilla should serve as a proper metaphor for the biography to come.

Welcome to a world you could never imagine being a part of. Tread lightly.

Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) was just a ninth grader when she met Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) on the West German Air Force base where her stepfather was stationed. They eventually married in 1967, had daughter Lisa Marie, and divorced in 1973.

Like most stories about Elvis, this one is pretty familiar. But this point of view is not. That’s likely what interested Coppola, and she adapts Priscilla’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” as a lush, compelling, and often heartbreaking portrait of the woman at the heart of a uniquely American love story.

As Priscilla enters Elvis’s world, she’s a stranger in a strange land, wide eyed and wondering what this older man wants from her. It’s a theme that calls to mind Coppola’s Lost in Translation, but this young girl is much more at the mercy of Elvis than Scarlett Johansson ever was to Bill Murray.

And Spaeny (On the Basis of Sex, Bad Times at the El Royale) gives a breakout performance that is utterly transfixing. With grace and ease, she is able to take Priscilla from the shy schoolgirl hiding a big secret behind her knowing smile, to a woman no longer willing to sacrifice her life to the whims of an icon.

Just last year, Baz Luhrmann used Colonel Tom Parker as a fresh window into the legend of the King. But as entertaining as it was, Luhrmann’s film suffered from its one-note treatment of Elvis, the man. For Coppola, this is an area of strength.

Here, he’s a gaslighting, manipulative ass with a God complex, Mommy issues and weird ideas about sex. And Elordi (Euphoria) embodies it all through a strong performance that captures the charisma and complexities without leaning toward comic impersonation (and with Elvis, that is not easy).

Coppola’s pace and construction are reliably assured and more easily identifiable than anything she’s done since The Beguiled. The production design and time stamp are both detailed and gorgeous, wrapped in a dreamlike haze that slowly fades when reality starts chipping away at Priscilla’s youthful naivete.

And if you’re expecting a hit parade of Elvis classics, you’ve forgotten whose story this is. Coppola’s soundtrack choices are on point, right down to the way she incorporates the few moments of recognizable Elvis hits that we do hear. We only see that side of Priscilla’s husband the way she saw it: as a mythical creature she couldn’t pry loose from the man that always promised he’d make more time for her.