The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-31)

15

PG

THE

WASHINGTON

POST

.

FRIDAY,

JULY

31, 2020

Movies

ate portrait of transgender men

and women that, archaic lan-

guage aside, was decades of its

time. Grant brings all her gifts to

bear in each of these fascinating

films, which reflect the alert intel-

ligence, intuitive instincts and

deep wells of empathy needed to

be a great actress. It’s a bonus —

and should surprise no one — that

Grant is a great director as well.

Unrated. Available at afisil-

ver.afi.com.

— Ann Hornaday

Also streaming

Vinnie Jones, Malcolm Mc-

Dowell and Ron Perlman star in

the “The Big Ugly.” According to

the Guardian, this macho, West

Virginian-set crime thriller feels

like “something that got cooked

up after a bender guzzling a Sam

Peckinpah box set.” R. Available

on various streaming platforms.

Contains violence, strong lan-

guage throughout, some sexuality

and brief drug use. 105 minutes.

“The Cuban” is a story about a

pre-med student (Ana Golja)

working part-time in a nursing

home, whose unexpected friend-

ship with a near-catatonic patient

— a once-famous Cuban guitarist

played by Academy Award win-

ner Louis Gossett Jr. — reignites

her love of music. According to

Indie Pulse Music, the film is “a

carefully crafted creation weav-

ing together neuroscience, ro-

mance, coming of age and a bit of

cultural conflict with the threads

of trumpets, congas, guitars and

vocals.” Unrated. Available at

themiracletheatre.com and ange-

likablog.com/support-the-angeli-

ka. 109 minutes.

After multiple suicide at-

tempts, a young man finds him-

self still very much alive — yet

simultaneously in the company of

several deceased versions of him-

self — in “Dead Dicks.” According

to the Austin Chronicle, the dark

comedy is at heart a “touching

[science fiction] drama about the

dysfunctional relationship be-

tween siblings.” Unrated. Avail-

able on various streaming plat-

forms. 83 minutes.

Inspired by true events, and

taking place during the outset of

the Georgian Civil War, the drama

“Dede” revolves around a young

woman who rejects the brokered

marriage arrangement set up by

her family. The film marks the

feature debut of director Mariam

Khatchvani, who demonstrates a

“sure hand with actors and a taste

for natural beauty,” according to

the Chicago Reader. Unrated.

Available on various streaming

platforms. In Georgian with sub-

titles. 97 minutes.

The quiet routine of a home-

care nurse (Mariko Tsutsui) is

upended following a kidnapping

in “A Girl Missing.” Variety calls

the Japanese thriller a “disap-

pointing and unmoving drama of

how a good woman’s life is shat-

tered by keeping quiet.” Unrated.

Available at afisilver.afi.com. In

Japanese with subtitles. 112 min-

utes.

“Gordon Lightfoot: If You

Could Read My Mind” is a docu-

mentary about the life and career

of the Canadian singer/songwrit-

er. Now Toronto calls the portrait

of Lightfoot “candid, revealing.”

Unrated. Available at themiracle-

theatre.com and cinemartsthe-

atre.com. 91 minutes.

The demise of the studio sys-

tem and the rise of the indepen-

dent musician armed with social

media and a smartphone — along

with, presumably, talent — is ex-

plored in the documentary “Ins-

taBand.” Unrated. Available on

various streaming platforms. 98

minutes.

Real-life couple Yvan Attal and

Charlotte Gainsbourg play a cou-

ple in crisis in “My Dog Stupid,” a

bittersweet French comedy about

a writer with writer’s block (Attal,

who also directed) and how his

newly adopted dog disrupts his

New movies available online

“The Hater” is director Jan
Komasa’s deeply disturbing fol-
low-up to “Corpus Christi,” his
Oscar-nominated collaboration
with screenwriter Mateusz Pace-
wicz, with whom the Polish film-
maker has again teamed up on a
story about deception. But his
latest film has less in common
with last year’s story of a criminal
who passes himself off as a priest
than it does with Komasa’s 2011
“Suicide Room,” to which it is a
sequel of sorts. The protagonist is
Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski), a
brilliant but maladjusted young
man who, when first we meet
him, is being kicked out of law
school for plagiarism — a pecca-
dillo that seems almost quaint by
the time the story ends. Fueled by
his rejection at the hands of a
childhood crush (Vanessa Alek-
sander), Tomasz turns to all sorts
of increasingly antisocial behav-
ior: electronic eavesdropping,
stalking and the destroying of
people’s careers via online slan-
der. Eventually, his manipulation
of social media for a shady mar-
keting firm leaps, like a wildfire,
from the virtual realm to the
physical world, as he helps fan the
flames of anti-immigrant vitriol
in the mind of a dangerously
unhinged troll he has met online.
Komasa’s decision to have the two
men engage with each other only
through their video game avatars
is an effective metaphor for the
detachment of the Internet, but
“The Hater” ultimately fails to
make Tomasz recognizably
h uman in any way, which could
be its point. TV-MA. Available on
Netflix. Contains violence, sex,
crude language, drug use, bloody
images, brief nudity and sex. In
Polish with subtitles. 136 minutes.
— Michael O’Sullivan

Lee Grant will be the first to tell
you she’s a woman of nearly insa-
tiable appetite. Her acting career
nearly fatally interrupted by be-
ing blacklisted in the 1950s and
1960s, Grant came roaring back
and, to quote the title of her
memoir, said yes to everything.
Eventually, that included direct-
ing, and since the 1980s she’s
made a string of candid, political-
ly engaged documentaries that
have proven to be astonishingly
prescient. The six-film program
“20th Century Woman: The
Documentary Films of Lee
Grant” includes the highlights of
Grant’s nonfiction career, includ-
ing the Oscar-winning “Down
and Out in America” (1986),
about Reagan-era poverty and
alienation that feels queasily of-
the-moment; “The Willmar 8 ”
(1981), a stirring account of a tiny
band of women who dared to
fight for their rights against the
small-town Minnesota bank
where they worked; and “What
Sex Am I?” (1985), a compassion-

family. The Hollywood Reporter

calls it a “well-written and

-played remarriage dramedy that

explores the Attal-Gainsbourg

duo as they hit middle age and

their kids gradually, and some-

times reluctantly, leave the nest.”

Unrated. Available at theav-

alon.org and afisilver.afi.com. In

French with subtitles. 99 minutes.

The restaurant drama “Nose

to Tail” tells the story of an

abrasive, narcissistic chef and his

struggle to save the high-end bis-

tro he has poured his life into.

Putting his back into the role,

Aaron Abrams gives the charac-

ter a “swelling desperation that’s

surprisingly touching,” according

to the New York Times. Unrated.

Available on various streaming

platforms. 82 minutes.

Director Ron Howard’s “Re-

building Paradise” takes a docu-

mentary look at efforts by the

community of Paradise, Calif., to

start over after the devastation of

the Camp Fire, a 2018 wildfire

that killed 85 people, displaced

50,000 residents and destroyed

95 percent of local structures.

The film, according to Variety, is

“dunked in a sentimental glow

about what ‘paradise’ is, a rever-

ence that seems, by the end, as

insular as it is inspiring.” PG-13.

Available at afisilver.afi.com and

themiracletheatre.com. Contains

intense scenes of peril, mature

thematic elements and some

strong language. 95 minutes.

Set in Johannesburg, the ro-

mantic comedy “Seriously Sin-

gle” tells the story of two female

best friends: one happily single,

the other desperate to find a

romantic connection. TV-MA.

Available on Netflix. 107 minutes.

“Stockton on My Mind” is a

personal and political documenta-

ry portrait of Stockton, Calif., May-

or Michael Tubbs, who, in 2016 at

26, became the youngest mayor of

a major American city, and the first

African American mayor of his

beleaguered hometown. Unrated.

Available on HBO and HBO Max.

95 minutes.

A 16-year-old Catholic girl in

the Midwest (Natalia Dyer) dis-

covers sin and sexuality in “Yes,

God, Yes,” sending her to a faith-

based retreat for a “cure.” Accord-

ing to the New York Times, the

film is slight and sweet, and

without much of an edge, “using

the pursuit of climax as an oppor-

tunity to take a gentle dig at

religious humbug and holier-

than-thou hypocrisy.” R. Avail-

able on various streaming plat-

forms. Contains sexuality and

some nudity. 78 minutes.

JAROSLAW SOSINSKI/NAIMA FILM/NETFLIX

“The Hater” traffics in a what feels like an inhuman barrage of antisocial behavior on social media,

DAVID KOSKAS/STUDIO CANAL/SAME PLAYER

Yvan Attal directs and stars in “My Dog Stupid,” about the

disruptive influence of an adopted dog on a couple in crisis.

VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT

Natalia Dyer plays a

Midwestern girl at the age of

discovery in “Yes, God, Yes.”