Haunted Mansion in theaters
What with El Rio Del Tiempo at Epcot having been retooled into a Three Caballeros adventure, The Haunted Mansion reigns as my fave Disney experience. This new take on the material (from Dear White People and Bad Hair writer-director Justin Simien) is fun, funny and family-friendly, but also just scary enough, and a genuine surprise — at least for me. Any film that features Danny DeVito catching shrimp in his mouth at a teppanyaki restaurant is keyed into a specific aesthetic (mine), and LaKeith Stanfield as a particle physicist with a great sense of drama and comedy brings unexpected gravitas. The ghosts are great (barring general whatsit Jared Leto, who literally could have been anyone else), child actor Chase W. Dillon is a star in the making, and it pays affectionate tribute to the ride’s mythology in a charming way. While I wish it had been in 3D, I have to say this gets close to the transformative joy of Muppet Haunted Mansion, still the best adaptation of the attraction.
The Meg 2: The Trench in theaters
For some reason directed by Ben Wheatley (still chasing the glories of Sightseers and A Field in England), this one-and-a-half-star shark movie steps up a notch in 4DX, because a rampaging requine film is exactly what that film format is made for. The problem is that the first hour feels like a retread of 2020’s Underwater, and it isn’t until the halfway mark that we get to Fun Island, where the idle rich are set up as a buffet for the hungry denizens of the deep. Spread throughout the film’s two hours, though, is about three minutes of a top-notch giant octopus movie, and that’s what you’re left wanting the sequel for. That CG octopus has more personality and better comic timing than any of the actual human cast.
They Cloned Tyrone
They Cloned Tyrone via Netflix
Jamie Foxx’s turn as a pimp named Slick Charles is enough to recommend this film on, though its sci-fi and satire game is just as on point. John Boyega and Teyonah Parris also star in They Cloned Tyrone, a dive into the well of conspiracies that coalesce around the stereotypes that our culture still mold-stamps onto Black communities — as funny and freaky as you would hope for from something determined to vivisect the tropes that our culture can’t let go of some 50 years on. But also, Foxx’s Slick Charles is one for the ages, easily worthy of Black Dynamite’s pimp summit.
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani in theaters, coming soon to Amazon Prime
A fun and emotionally unpredictable Hindi romantic epic about Laddu empire heir Rocky (Ranveer Singh) and TV personality Rani (Alia Bhatt, from RRR), their dysfunctional families and the weird ways of love. Singh’s fashion sense is keyed into Prince, specifically during the Lovesexy-into-Graffiti Bridge transition, and the musical numbers are propulsive and epic. Audiences unfamiliar with Indian cinema will see the ending coming, but they’ll in no way know where all the journey is going to take them. Like Oppenheimer, this is a surprisingly brisk three hours.
The Reluctant Icon on Blu-ray from Severin
Debuting as part of Severin Films’ resplendent The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle box set, this short documentary from the incomparable Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched) is a protean look at the life and career of cult icon Laura Gemser and her personification of investigative photojournalist Mae “Emanuelle” Jordan. Janisse has peerless instincts, and she pays respectful and affectionate tribute to an icon who retired on her own terms.
“Card Zero”on Blu-ray from ETR/Vinegar Syndrome, and streaming via ScreamBox
A prequel to this spring’s lysergic found-footage freakout The Outwaters, this remarkable short shows that writer-director Robbie Banfitch could easily make visceral docudramas about young relationships, but his impulse to make genuinely unsettling horror won out. If I still did festival shorts programming, this would be at the top of the list.
Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music via Max
Given the homophobic tear David Zaslav went on when canceling Talk Show the Game Show and At Home With Amy Sedaris, transforming TruTV into all Impractical Jokers all the time, it’s amazing that anything as queer, empathetic and exceptionally mounted as this documentary managed to emerge under the regime of criminal against cinema Zaslav. This is a two-hour dip into the epic, 24-hour mounting of performance artist/actual genius Taylor Mac’s journey through 240 years of American popular music, spanning from 1776 through 2016. Every single musician should be watching this and taking notes, because there’s simply nothing else to compare it to.
