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      ‘Malni — Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore’ Review: Embracing Our Ghosts

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      This ethereal experimental documentary by Sky Hopinka is an essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life.An essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life that resists the touristic gaze, “Małni — Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore,” the debut feature from the Ho-Chunk artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka, isn’t too concerned with whether we fully understand the traditions and rituals it entrancingly commits to screen. It refreshingly centers the Native perspective, and beckons audiences onto its wavelength by tapping into something more intuitive, the stuff of dreams.“You don’t have to say much,” says one of the film’s two subjects, Sweetwater Sahme, as she leads the filmmaker on a hike through the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, gesturing at the quivering foliage. “It’s a feeling, an energy. And there’s so much to look at.”The documentary, anchored in the Chinookan origin-of-death myth (a dialogue between a wolf and a coyote about the afterlife), separately follows two young parents — pregnant Sahme and Jordan Mercier, both friends of Hopinka’s — as they grapple with questions of legacy and identity.Subtitles switch between English and Chinook jargon, yet the oral component (including Hopinka’s narration) occasionally fades into the backdrop with sound design that amplifies the crackling of a fire, the bubbling and thrashing of the ocean and waterfalls.The natural world, with its never-ending tides and its cycles of life and death, provides a framework for the preservation of Indigenous culture, resilient despite its new forms and manifestations. An extended interlude sees a Native song and dance performed inside a school gymnasium. In voice-over, Sahme considers the link between her unborn child and her grandmother while a long canoe makes its way down a river lined with cranes and factories.An undeniable melancholy — a sense of loss — pervades the film. Yet it is never resigned. The ghosts of history live among us. To ignore their presence, “Małni” seems to say, is to forget who we really are.Malni — Towards the Ocean, Towards the ShoreNot rated. In English and Chinook jargon, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. On Metrograph’s virtual cinema. More

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      ‘Concrete Cowboy’ Review: Acquiring Horse Sense on the Philly Streets

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      Idris Elba leads us through the long-buried heritage of America’s Black cowboys, manifested in their modern-day urban descendants.There’s a quote that’s been circulating for years and years, apocryphally attributed to Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill and a few other white men: “There is nothing so good for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.” In “Concrete Cowboy,” the improving aspects of horseback riding — and, yes, stable maintenance — are demonstrated in the tale of a troubled Black teenager, Cole (Caleb McLaughlin).One afternoon Cole’s mom picks him up from school after a fight gets him expelled. She’s so fed up with her son that she drives him all the way from their home in Detroit to Philadelphia, where his estranged, taciturn father, Harp (Idris Elba), lives. With a horse.Harp is part of a group of urban riders. There’s not a lot of room in Philly for expansive stables, so it’s catch as catch can. Nevertheless, Harp and his buddies keep their operations sufficiently copacetic that they are not just tolerated but embraced by much of their community, although the local cop Leroy (Method Man) warns that the authorities might soon break up their party. Cole gets schooled in horse sense; his training features an in-your-face close-up of a wheelbarrow full of manure.Directed by Ricky Staub and adapted from G. Neri’s young adult novel “Ghetto Cowboy,” this picture offers a standard shot-at-redemption story, complete with temptation in the form of Cole’s renewed connection with an old friend who’s involved in drug dealing. But the movie’s convincing accretion of detail and its affectionate fictionalization of an actual subculture are disarming. (Some of the supporting players are members of the Fletcher Street Riders; the characters they play talk of the actual history of the Black cowboy in a scene around a vacant-lot campfire.) The quirks of Elba’s character suit his confident manliness well, and McLaughlin handles Cole’s defiance and sometimes practically equine skittishness with considerable depth.Concrete CowboyRated R for themes, language, drug use. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ Review: The Artwork Has Legs

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      In this Oscar-nominated film, a Syrian refugee agrees to become a piece of art in exchange for passage to Europe.Art satire meets immigration drama in the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Man Who Sold His Skin.” Ben Hania repurposes a real-life chapter from the annals of the art world, when the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye tattooed the back of a man, and then sold it as art. What sounds like a recipe for trouble — what about the human who’s the canvas? — is exactly where the movie lives, spinning a prickly cautionary tale of exploitation and commodification.Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) is jailed after declaring his love for Abeer (Dea Liane) on a train in Syria. Escaping to Lebanon, he crosses paths with a high-flying artiste, Jeffrey Godefroi (Koen De Bouw), who offers legal passage to Europe in exchange for conscripting Sam in an audacious project. That entails tattooing Sam’s back with a Schengen visa and showcasing him in museums. (Lending a plot assist as Jeffrey’s modish associate is Monica Bellucci.)Sam keeps Skyping with Abeer, who’s now stuck in a parent-approved marriage to a diplomat, and their slender romantic thread pulls the story along through Sam’s sometimes clunky trials as a museum piece and luxury-hotel inmate. His feelings of being a perpetual outsider, valued for everything but his personhood, body forth the dehumanizing elements of some immigrant experience.The lustrously shot movie breaks Sam out of the gallery grind through Hollywood-grade somersaults in storytelling (one of them so breezily violent as to feel a little tasteless). But the story evidently struck a chord, garnering an Academy Award nomination (like “The Square” before it) in the international feature category.The Man Who Sold His SkinNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      ‘This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection’ Review: Bringing Out the Dead

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      In this drama, a widow rises out of grief to protest a threat to her village.The South African actress Mary Twala Mhlongo (who died last summer at 80) becomes an avatar of grief in “This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection.” With a gorgeously wizened face that feels weighted down by all that she has seen, Mhlongo plays a widow, Mantoa, whose miner son has just died. At first she sits at night by the radio, listening to obituaries and seemingly waiting for her own maker. But she surges into indignant action when a (true-to-life) dam project threatens her village with erasure, and desecration.Lesotho-born director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese shoots his film as a kind of living legend, with a mix of warm-hued tableaus and hillside portraits in defiance. Mosese reaches for a knockout from the very first sequence, a narcotic pan across a hauntingly lit party scene that rests on the film’s narrator figure, playing a lesiba (a mouth-blown string instrument). Though the film cuts back to this mystery storyteller periodically, Mhlongo (who also appears in Beyoncé’s “Black Is King”) carries the movie on her shoulders with an authoritative presence.
      Mantoa rallies the residents of her farming village, while weathering periods of hopelessness and bafflement. Haunted by the score’s buzzing soundscapes, the movie feels a bit blockily assembled. Its impact radiates out of Mhlongo’s discontent, whether with a priest’s pieties, or with the politician who says displaced villagers can simply exhume and bring their ancestors’ remains.The film’s press announcement drops the word “cryptic” but, after a year of global loss from Covid-19, the need to mourn the dead properly couldn’t feel more immediate and recognizable.This Is Not a Burial, It’s a ResurrectionNot rated. In Sesotho, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours. In virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘Amundsen: The Greatest Expedition’ Review: Ice, Ice, Baby

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      This overstuffed trek through the chilly life of the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen is a handsome snooze.The subject of the sluggish Norwegian biopic “Amundsen: The Greatest Expedition” might be the polar explorer Roald Amundsen, but its star is frozen water. On clothing and facial hair, from North Pole to South, ice whitens the screen. There’s every indication Amundsen’s heart is carved from it, too.Clearly rejecting hagiography, the director, Espen Sandberg, presents Amundsen (Pal Sverre Hagen) as a cold, selfish fanatic with a cruel streak and a preference for married mistresses. Whenever we leave his frigid adventures to spend time with his estranged, rather tragic brother, Leon (a touching Christian Rubeck), it’s hard not to recognize him as the more humane, perhaps more admirable sibling.Woefully short on excitement and long on — well, just long — “Amundsen,” away from the blizzards and chattering teeth, is a pompous parade of stiff collars and stuffy rooms. Even when depicting the 1911 British-Norwegian race to the South Pole (spoiler: Amundsen wins), the film never exceeds a lumbering crawl, despite an agitated score that strains to impart urgency to its hero’s icecapades. A more compelling movie might have dispensed with the litany of achievements to focus more intently on Amundsen’s competitiveness, (especially his rivalry with the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott), a choice that would have dovetailed more organically with this picture’s central performance.Instead, “Amundsen” tries in vain to make us care about its unprepossessing subject, a man who seems to extract little joy from his staggering successes. This leaves us with a psychological slide show of punishing ambition to which Hagen — master of the baleful glance and glory-seeking smirk — fully commits. Even if his director hesitates to do the same.Amundsen: The Greatest ExpeditionNot rated. In Norwegian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Report: WB Considering R-Rated Harry Potter Movie, Emma Watson Nearing Deal to Return

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      Warner Bros. Pictures

      Coming from the same tipster, the unconfirmed tidbits, however, do not mention if the Hermione Granger depicter is entering talks for the said planned R-rated project.

      Apr 1, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      “Harry Potter” could be back on the big screen as an adults-only movie. Almost ten years since the last installment in the film series hit theaters worldwide, it’s now reported that there are talks to reboot the franchise as R-rated project.

      A so-called insider, Daniel Richtman, shared the unconfirmed tidbit on Patreon (via We Got This Covered), though no other details are available now. The report should be taken with a grain of salt, since the same tipster previously also touted potential R-ratings for Robert Downey Jr.’s “Sherlock Holmes 3”, multiple MCU projects, “Star Wars”, “Transformers”, “Star Trek”, the DCEU, Tom Holland’s “Spider-Man” movie and Tim Burton’s “The Addams Family”, but none of them have been proven to be true.

      The same source additionally reports that Emma Watson is currently in talks to return for a new Harry Potter movie. The British actress is allegedly close to signing on to reprise her role as Hermione Granger in a spin-off centering on her character. It, however, is unclear if the Hermione-centric spin-off is the same “Harry Potter” project that is touted to be R-rated.

        See also…

      While Warner Bros. has never officially announced plan to reboot the “Harry Potter” franchise, the studio has already had a spin-off prequel series based on characters in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world novels. “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, the first of the five-film series, was released in 2016, with Eddie Redmayne leading the cast as magizoologist Newt Scamander.

      A box office success after grossing $814 million worldwide, it’s followed by its sequel, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”, which was released in 2018 and raked in a total of $655 globally. While it’s the lowest-grossing Wizarding World installment to-date, the studio still moves forward with its plans for a third movie, which has been filmed since late 2020.

      Meanwhile, WB and HBO recently put to rest rumors that stated they’re developing a live-action “Harry Potter” TV spin-off series. In a joint statement issued to TheWrap, they insisted, “There are no ‘Harry Potter’ series in development at the studio or on the streaming platform.”

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      Netflix to Reunite Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson on Two 'Knives Out' Sequels

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      WENN/Instar/Judy Eddy

      The deal the streaming giant is reportedly closing in for the two follow-ups to the 2019 hit is alleged to be worth over $400 million, with production being eyed to start at the end of June.

      Apr 1, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Daniel Craig looks set to return to screens as quirky detective Benoit Blanc for two “Knives Out” sequels after walking away from James Bond.

      Netflix bosses are reportedly closing in on a deal to make two follow-ups to the actor’s 2019 hit, with Rian Johnson on board to return as writer/director. Sources tell Deadline the deal will be worth over $400 million (£290 million), making it one of the biggest projects to hit the streaming service.

      The original film was made for $40 million (£29 million) and went on to earn over $311 million (£225.6 million) at the international box office. In addition to Craig, it has Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield and Christopher Plummer in its cast ensemble.

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      If all goes well, production on the first sequel will begin in Greece at the end of June – over three months before Craig’s delayed swansong as 007 in “No Time to Die” reaches theaters.

      In early February 2020, Johnson shared his thought on the possible sequels. During a chat on SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show”, the director initially admitted, “In my mind I don’t even think of it in terms of a sequel.”

      “Ever since we started working on this… look, if we can keep this going, the same way Agatha Christie wrote a bunch of Poirot novels, and then do that with Blanc and keep making new mysteries,” he continued. “Whole new cast, whole new locations. It’s just another Benoit Blanc mystery.”

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      Naya Rivera Revealed as Voice of Catwoman in 'Batman: The Long Halloween'

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      WENN/DC Comics

      The late ‘Glee’ actress has been revealed as the actress who provides voice to the DC female superhero in the upcoming animated Caped Crusader adaptation.

      Apr 1, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Late actress Naya Rivera has been unveiled as the voice of Catwoman in the upcoming animated movie “Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One”.

      The “Glee” star drowned in a boating accident in July (20), but now it’s been revealed she had already wrapped recording sessions for the new DC Comics film, in which she will play Selina Kyle and her feline alter ego, Catwoman.

      “Supernatural” actor Jensen Ackles leads the cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman while Josh Duhamel tackles the role of Harvey Dent/Two-Face.

        See also…

      Billy Burke, Titus Welliver, David Dastmalchian, Troy Baker, Jack Quaid, and Amy Landecker are also lending their voices to the two-part project, with “Part One” expected to premiere later this year (21), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

      “Batman: The Long Halloween”, which follows the superhero early on in his career, is based on the beloved comic book of the same name, created by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale, and first released in 1996.

      The film adaptation was penned by Tim Sheridan, with his “Superman: Man of Tomorrow” director Chris Palmer taking charge of the shoot. Rivera’s involvement in “Batman: The Long Halloween” marks her final screen credit following her role as Collette Jones in YouTube series “Step Up: High Water”, in which she starred for the first two seasons in 2018 and 2019.

      U.S. network bosses at Starz last year announced they would be bringing the show back for another run, with singer/actress Christina Milian recruited to take over Rivera’s character.

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