Aurelia Butler

A documentary by Alex Ross Perry examines how movies and TV have portrayed video store culture.Borrowing the format of “Los Angeles Plays Itself” (2004), Thom Andersen’s great, sprawling survey of how movies have depicted Los Angeles, Alex Ross Perry’s archival documentary “Videoheaven” takes on a topic that is considerably more niche: how movies have depicted video stores.The subject is more capacious than it might sound. For one thing, it is intriguingly time-bound. Video stores couldn’t have appeared in movies until the late 1970s, says Maya Hawke, who narrates, in a nod to her role as a video store employee on “Stranger Things.” Eventually, such stores will only be portrayed by people who never experienced them firsthand, she says, “like westerns or the World War II film.”Drawing on Daniel Herbert’s book “Videoland,” Perry traces how films and TV went from showing home viewing as exotic or dangerous (“Videodrome,” “Body Double”) to seeing it as routine. Onscreen, video stores became sites for romantic interaction or potential embarrassment. Pondering a television trope in which a person seeking to rent a pornographic movie is, without fail, shamed, “Videoheaven” describes “an extremely 1990s paradox wherein adults are interested in sexuality but unwilling to admit it.”The observations range from the incisive to the grandiose, and at nearly three hours, “Videoheaven” could stand a tighter edit. Early on, a line of voice-over is sloppily repeated verbatim. And Perry only needs so many clips of obnoxious clerks, even if it’s funny to see David Spade repeatedly typecast in that role.But the material will be irresistible to any cinephile who has spent countless hours in these spaces, and a critic would do well to admit susceptibility. I’ve met Perry a few times over the years, and the first time, he thought I looked familiar — I assume because I had frequented the Kim’s Video where he worked.VideoheavenNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 53 minutes. In theaters. More

Uma Thurman joins the expanded cast in this sure-footed sequel to the action blockbuster about a team of immortal heroes.Five years ago, “The Old Guard” injected a tired genre of superhumans in capes with existential alienation and grit. The aim of that film, about a crew of immortal vigilantes who go on rescue missions to help mankind, was admirable but also frequently one note.What could another installment offer? The best that a sequel can: buff out those blemishes, expand the universe and subvert the genre again. In “The Old Guard 2,” superheroes saving humanity is out, gods beefing with gods is in. The film, directed by Victoria Mahoney, is a sure-footed romp that tightens the screws, most immediately by flexing a bigger cast and broadening the lore of the original comic book series. All this expansion starts right where the last one ended. Believed to be lost under the sea for centuries, Quynh (Veronica Ngo), a fellow immortal and lover of Andy (Charlize Theron), has returned. She’s discovered by Discord (Uma Thurman), another mysterious immortal who is opposed to Andy’s meddling in human affairs. Aggrieved and feeling abandoned by Andy, who is now mortal, Quynh then becomes a useful tool for Discord.Whereas the first film was focused on the arrival of a new immortal named Nile (KiKi Layne), this one has forgotten immortals popping up (like Tuah, played by Henry Golding). That means a lot of drama, and fertile ground for these supreme beings reckoning with the most human of experiences: love and betrayal, guilt and regret, all complicated by being alive for millenniums.Ngo is the key anchor to these feelings, providing a strong emotional counterpoint to Theron that was just present in flashbacks the first time around. The shared history in their gazes and the pain and recriminations of losing and finding each other again translates the wistful burden of immortality that the first film mostly said, but couldn’t really make you feel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

This action movie about U.S. and British leaders, also featuring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, plays like a silly version of a BBC political satire series.As the U.S. President (and former movie star) Will Derringer prepares to meet the British prime minister, Sam Clarke, he has something of a chip on his shoulder. Journalists and aides figure he’s holding a grudge; during his presidential campaign, Clarke took Derringer’s opponent out for fish and chips. Then, the two are thrown together in the run-up to a NATO summit; their determination to patch up their relationship, which isn’t terribly strong to begin with, is eventually enhanced when they’re forced to fend off varied explosive assassination attempts.Directed by Ilya Naishuller, who also made the absurdist action pictures “Hardcore Henry” and “Nobody,” “Heads of State” plays like a season of the BBC political satire series “The Thick of It.” (If the show had been crafted to satisfy the Second City Television characters Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok, whose approval of movies was contingent on things “blowing up real good.”) John Cena, the U.S. president, and Idris Elba, the British leader, craft their performances cannily — their characters don’t know they’re in a comedy, which makes things funnier. The way Cena’s face turns blank when his character doesn’t know what to do next (which is often) is particularly effective.The movie contains some intriguing, presumably deliberate nods to auteurist cinema. Like Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011), it opens at the messy Tomatina (tomato festival) in Buñol, Spain, where a shooting aimed at a secret agent played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas is easily mistaken for an edible splat. As in Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI,” a popular Beastie Boys tune is blared on a sound system during an action scene. And just like in Mike Judge’s “Office Space,” Stephen Root plays a functionary who is routinely humiliated by his boss. It’s loud albeit harmless japery, best appreciated with your air-conditioning cranked to movie theater levels.Heads of StateRated PG-13 for language and comedic violence. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Prime Video. More

Danielle Deadwyler tussles with cannibals in a disturbing postapocalyptic thriller.“You think bullets grow on trees?” a perturbed Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) asks her daughter. Eleven years into a global famine that has rendered farmland the most valuable resource of this near future, Hailey spends her days training her children to ward off the marauding bandits coveting the fertile family land she tirelessly works.The title of R.T. Thorne’s fierce and striking postapocalyptic thriller, “40 Acres,” is, of course, rife with symbolism. The name stems from Gen. William T. Sherman’s Civil War land promise to Black Americans freed from enslavement. Hailey’s lush rural Canadian property, whose familial ownership dates to 1875, is a fulfilled vow that never came to fruition in the United States. Tellingly, those who trespass on Hailey’s farm, such as a band of killers in the film’s gruesome opening skirmish, are exclusively white.To protect the area, Hailey and her Indigenous partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes) — who’s also understandably sensitive to the preciousness of land — rely on their four children. A kindhearted Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor) patrols; a perceptive Raine (Leenah Robinson) serves as a sniper; and the growing sisters Danis (Jaeda LeBlanc) and Cookie (Haile Amare) help where they can. Furthering fortifications include an electrified fence, A.T.V.s for roaming, a cache of guns in a fallout shelter and a network of subterranean tunnels suggesting an underground railroad. During the day they practice marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat, and at dinner, Raine presents a report on “The Proletarian Handbook.”Though Hailey prefers isolationism, new threats emerge testing her desire. Through her CB radio she learns that cannibals have massacred several surrounding farms. Her lone friend, Augusta (Elizabeth Saunders), is also missing. Unbeknown to Hailey, Emanuel, who’s desperate to find romance and others his age, takes in a wounded Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas), who mysteriously appears in search of help.While we learn much about this family during the film’s five chapters, their surrounding world remains obscured. Hailey speaks about a military faction known as “Union,” but they’re never seen. Is a government still in place? Is there an opposition? Though these cannibals are a menacing presence, they also remain nameless and broad. By seeing the army and the cannibals as the same threat, Thorne limits the film’s dramatic potential to mix race with horror and history.Still, there’s a tense beauty to “40 Acres.” Deadwyler’s forceful energy fills the frame; through her rigid stature and her cleareyed speech, she lends power and humor to this lovingly stern mother. Through wide shots and sweeping tracks, the cinematographer Jeremy Benning juxtaposes this heartland’s soft golden hour magic with the hard violence necessary to defend it. A final freakout, taking place in multiple settings, helps to quench the viewer’s pent-up blood thirstiness, while Hailey’s last-act devotion to Emanuel adds warmth to a chilling apocalyptic story.40 AcresRated R for strong bloody violent content and language. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More