8 THENEWYORKER,APRIL11, 2022
COURTESY CINEMA GUILD
The South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, who often makes two and
sometimes even three features a year, is the most prolific internationally ac-
claimed director now active. His body of work is a world in itself, detailing,
with understated intricacy, the romantic bewilderments and artistic strivings
of the country’s culturati. Yet some of his best films, such as “Hahaha,”
from 2010, have fallen through the cracks of U.S. distribution. An extensive
two-part retrospective of Hong’s movies, starting on April 8, at Film at
Lincoln Center, presents that daringly original drama on April 10 and
April 12. The action is shown entirely in flashbacks, as two young men—
Moon-kyeong, a struggling filmmaker, and Joong-sik, a professor—relate,
over many drinks, their summertime adventures in the city of Tongyeong.
Unbeknownst to them, their love affairs involve an overlapping array of
characters, including Moon-kyeong’s mother, a wise and willful restaurateur
played by Yuh-Jung Youn, who won an Oscar last year for her performance
in “Minari.” The poignant yet acerbic tale of missed connections and cyn-
ical maneuvers is a modernist revision of classic melodrama; its hands-on
intimacy and local specificity belie a whirlwind complexity.—Richard BrodyONTHEBIGSCREEN
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MOVIES
The Bubble
Judd Apatow’s hectic new comedy is set at a
lavish rural English hotel, where a Hollywood
cast and crew are isolated in a pandemic bubble
in order to film a fantasy-franchise sequel. Soon
enough, however, the pressure turns the group
into lords and ladies of the flies, and their cruel
machinations soon threaten their health, their
careers, and even their lives. A star (David Du-
chovny) wants to rewrite his dialogue and seeks
the support of his co-star and ex (Leslie Mann), a
former star (Karen Gillan) is desperately seeking
relevance, a young influencer (Iris Apatow) is
acting mainly for social media, an action star
(Keegan-Michael Key) is promoting his New
Age religion, and the blithering director (Fred
Armisen) is an indie darling who’s out of his
league. The production’s minder (Harry Trevald-
wyn) has the calm authority of a hit man, and
the studio’s executives (Kate McKinnon among
them) issue ever harsher demands with gleaming
smiles—all for a numbingly silly special-effects
spectacle. The comedy (written by Apatow and
Pam Brady) has the caustic tone of score-set-
tling; the satire is scattershot and the humor
often forced, but the anger feels authentic and
personal.—Richard Brody (Streaming on Netflix.)A Lion Is in the Streets
James Cagney blusters and glad-hands his way
through this rowdy, splashy, yet chilling 1953
Technicolor drama, directed by Raoul Walsh,
which unfolds in detail an American autocrat’s
playbook. Cagney stars as a Louisiana-back-
woods peddler named Hank Martin, an expert
salesman and a local folk hero who organizes a
posse to threaten a businessman who’s cheating
sharecroppers. As a result, Hank faces criminal1
For more reviews, visit
newyorker.com/goings-on-about-towncharges, and a corrupt political fixer (Onslow
Stevens) comes up with a plan for him to beat
the rap—by propping Hank up to run for gov-
ernor against an authentic reformer. What re-
sults is all too familiar: an affair with a flashily
nicknamed woman, a takeover of a courtroom,
a plot to kill a potentially incriminating witness,
Election Day chicanery, an election thrown into
the legislature, and a private militia that seeks
to influence the decision. With his bounce and
snap, his patter and charm, Cagney displays
the ease with which a loud, audacious, brazen,
fast-talking rogue with a ravenous ego can win
the hearts of the vulnerable and downtrodden
while making common cause with their oppres-
sors.—R.B. (Playing on TCM April 7 and stream-
ing on Prime Video, iTunes, and other services.)Thirty Two Short Films
About Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould, as scorned and as revered as
any figure in modern music, died in 1982.
François Girard’s movie, from 1994, honors
Gould’s strong-willed, idiosyncratic genius
with a suitably offbeat approach: a bunch of
little films, none lasting more than a few min-
utes, all angling for a new take on the pianist’s
life and work—thirty-two ways of looking at
Glenn Gould. Scenes from his boyhood and
his professional career are neatly dramatized;
the Canadian actor Colm Feore plays the adult
Gould, though he never, thank goodness, tries
to reproduce Gould’s manner at the keyboard.
In between the scenes come interviews, dashes
of animation, and even a sequence shot as an
X-ray. The whole enterprise is designed to skirt
the traditional traps of the music movie; instead
of a laborious bio-pic, we get a sly, quick-wit-
ted meditation on a character always likely to
elude our grasp. The finale—a Gould recording
of Bach carried into deep space by a Voyager
spacecraft—leaves you gawking.—Anthony Lane
(Reviewed in our issue of 4/18/94.) (Streaming on
Prime Video, iTunes, and other services.)Thomasine & Bushrod
In 1974, two years after making “Super Fly,” the
director Gordon Parks, Jr., infused this pica-
resque Western with a similar blend of cool swag-
ger and social acuity. The action starts in 1911,
in Texas, where Thomasine (Vonetta McGee), a
sharpshooting bounty hunter, and H.P. Bushrod
(Max Julien), a most-wanted outlaw, team up to
rob banks. Distributing their pelf to the poor
and disposing of murderous racists, they become
living legends throughout the South—fictional
Black forerunners of Bonnie and Clyde. Much of
the movie (written by Julien) involves the lovers’
gruff romance and practical difficulties on the
run. Bushrod, an expert horseman, switches to
early-model autos, giving rise to semi-comedic
low-speed chases; the proud and temperamental
Thomasine drolly schemes to join her partner
on wanted posters—and to get top billing. But
the horrific landscape of lynchings and sum-
mary executions puts their impulsive energy and
taut composure into fatal focus. When, during
a shoot-out, Bushrod—in a majestic closeup—
reloads his revolver, the whispered click of
metal on metal resounds like righteous thun-
der.—R.B. (Streaming on the Criterion Channel.)the open mouth of an elfish girl, whose patch-
work dress teems with forest life—one of the
lighter moments in Ruttenberg’s supernatural
wilderness of cryptic allegory and strife.— J. F.
(Lyles & King; through April 30.)