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      ‘Movie Theaters Are the Marketplace of Free Ideas’

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      John Fithian saw a lot during his nearly three decades as the president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, the top lobbyist for movie theaters, a tenure that ended on May 1.He grappled with the transition from film projection to digital cinema and engaged in multiple battles over the studios’ desire to shorten the amount of time newly released movies can exclusively be shown in theaters amid the rise of streaming services. Yet it wasn’t until spring 2020, at the start of the pandemic, when Mr. Fithian actually wondered whether his business was going to survive.Mr. Fithian said he was receiving calls “multiple times a day, from people saying, my third-, fourth-generation family business will be gone in a couple of months if you don’t get something for us,” he said with a nervous laugh. “That was that was when the crisis was very, very real to us.”He helped secure more than $2 billion in tax relief for the industry, allowing most of the country’s theater chains to stay afloat. In the end, only 2,000 screens were closed down.Mr. Fithian, 61, was raised in Washington, D.C., the son of former Representative Floyd Fithian of Indiana. He began his career as an outside counsel for clients that included the Major League Baseball players’ union and the theater owners’ association.“Hearing theater owners talk about why they went into business or why their grandparents went into the business was completely inspiring,” he said. “It sounds silly, but movie theaters are the marketplace of free ideas.”This interview, which was condensed and edited for clarity, was conducted during CinemaCon, an annual industry trade event, in Las Vegas.When was the moment when you felt like the movie theater business was going to be OK?About a month ago. (Laughs.) In 2022, we knew that people were coming back on a per-film basis at prepandemic rates so that kind of gave us the inkling that everything would be fine if the movies kept coming back. But, to be completely confident that this business will now grow to higher levels, that was only within the last few months, with pronouncements from the leaders of the major studios about their release slates going forward, by Amazon and Apple jumping into the theatrical business.Do you now see some silver linings to the pandemic?The so-called streaming wars that had started before the pandemic had the companies who owned streaming services, and Wall Street and its financial backers, believe that the only thing that mattered as a competitive business model was the number of subscribers to streaming services. We had heard from several studio leaders prepandemic that they really wanted to experiment with the elimination of a theatrical window.Eliminate it completely?“Some executives thought that. Others thought it should be dramatically shorter. There was a lot of pressure coming into the pandemic and during the pandemic. And release models totally changed. A lot of movies went only to streaming services. A lot of movies went simultaneously to theaters and streaming services. At the time, these were thought of as crisis moments for the creative community and for theater owners.But what happened is that a whole bunch of data came out of the pandemic about these theories of the theatrical window. One, it was quite clear when you compare the movies during the pandemic, the ones that had an exclusive theatrical window did much better theatrically, but then also did better when it got to the home. Two, we learned that piracy is exacerbated by shrinking the theatrical window. If movies are only in cinemas, the only way you can pirate a movie is with a recording device. And the quality level is not great. When a movie gets released to the home, a pristine digital, easily replicable, easy-to-distribute-around-the-world copy becomes available. So you’re literally cannibalizing movie theater sales from the very first day.Netflix is the last holdout when it comes to the theatrical space. Now that you have Amazon and Apple demonstrating a much greater interest in theatrical, does Netflix’s position matter as much?I’m just stoked that one of my goals before retirement was to get two out of three of the streamers to go theatrical. We got two out of three. I just didn’t think those would be the two.Do you believe you’ve permanently lost moviegoers because of changing habits developed during the pandemic?We don’t think so. We were very nervous about that right when we started coming out of the pandemic, and there was data early in the reopening that suggested that two demographics, seniors and families with small children, weren’t prepared to come back to cinemas. Then it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because studios wouldn’t theatrically distribute movies that appealed primarily to seniors, or to families with young children. Now the data is clear that movies released targeting those demographics are performing similar or better than they did in 2019, just like the movies targeted to other demographics. It was not a big surprise to us that the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” was going to do an extraordinary amount of business.People love to criticize the moviegoing experience: It’s too loud, and people talk, use their phones, and you have to sit through 30 minutes of ads before the movie starts. Is there an awareness that there are issues with going to the movie theater?We surveyed lots of theater owners about their plans coming out of the pandemic about adding premium large format screens, about replacing their sound systems, about adding alcohol service, about continuing to replace their seats. And the numbers are really strong. Now that the business is coming back, the theater owners have already started to continue to innovate and improve the experience so that it’s always better than the home.In both Los Angeles and New York, quite a few prime theaters that catered to independent film have shut down. Do you think independent film is struggling for a home nowadays?There’s a fascinating thing to me that I’ve noticed throughout my 30 years of representing theater owners, and that is what happens in Los Angeles or New York suggest to the creative community, the moviemakers, the reporters who cover our business, and the financial community, that is the movie experience. There’s a lot more out there. One company, Pacific Theaters, which ran the ArcLight, is the only company in the country who filed Chapter Seven bankruptcy. They went out of business entirely. There were a couple Chapter 11 reorganizations, but the only one that said, “Eh, I’m done” was Pacific. It does not mean that the art houses across the country closed down.What is a misconception people have about the movie theater business that you’ve tried to correct but didn’t succeed?Ticket prices. Even through all the innovations and improvements in the technology, and the sound systems and the premium screens — all the ways that we’ve improved the cinema experience over the last decade or two, it’s still the case that the average price of a ticket today on a cost-of-living basis is less than it was in the 1970s. And yet people always say movie tickets are too expensive.What are the biggest challenges facing the theatrical exhibition business going forward?I think the existential challenges — the pandemic, the streaming wars — are gone. I’m really the most optimistic I’ve been in 30 years about the future of the business. The biggest immediate challenge is it’s going to take a while to fix the balance sheets.Long term, it’s still about two things: the creation and distribution of really good movies that appeal to all demographics in all different genres, with diverse casts and diverse themes, and really good operational experiences at theaters that also offer diversity and different value-based judgments. If the studio partners keep making really good movies that appeal to diverse audiences, and we keep innovating and upgrading cinema experiences, I’m very bullish on the long-term health of the industry.Were you a movie lover before you took this job?I like movies. But I was principally a First Amendment lover, and a First Amendment lawyer in Washington. Our members will play everything: the most radical, left-wing anarchist film, the most conservative religious film, and we get protests on both sides. To me it was always like, “Bring it on.” Movie theaters are the town halls of modern society. It’s where people go to experience something collectively, and then debate the issues of the day.What is the thing you are going to miss the least?I don’t know who I’m going to miss the least, the really aggressive know-it-alls in Hollywood or the really aggressive know-it-alls in Washington, D.C. A lot of these people are my really good friends, and I’ll have some lasting relationships with both creatives and studio executives, but, you know, sometimes just because you run a big studio or you’re a United States senator doesn’t mean you know everything. I will not miss that. More

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      A Look at the ‘Fast and Furious’ Franchise Feuds

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      As “Fast X” races into theaters, here’s a look at the conflicts — star vs. star, star vs. director and more — that have kept this franchise in high gear.Over the course of more than 20 years of the “Fast and Furious” — the 10th in the franchise, “Fast X,” arrives this weekend — battles have been fought, villains have been overcome, friends have become foes and lovers have been reunited. (There was even a case of alignment-altering amnesia.)Behind the scenes, though, the conflicts have been no less fractious, with stars variously attacking the producers, their castmates and the franchise itself. With so much drama onscreen and off, it can be difficult to keep track of who has feuded and who is still feuding. So in honor of “Fast X,” here’s a guide to the beefs of the “Fast and the Furious.”Brian vs. DomThe series of explosive, high-octane blockbusters involving international espionage and elaborate multimillion-dollar heists began with “The Fast and the Furious,” a relatively straightforward 2001 crime thriller about an undercover cop trying to bust a Los Angeles street racing ring. The cop was Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), and his quarry was the brawny, mysterious Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). The pair faced off on the road, as uneasy friends turned enemies on opposite sides of the law, until their reconciling in an extravagant show of mutual respect. In the aftermath, Brian and Dom teamed up, stealing supercars and helping the feds as demanded by various plot turns.Paul Walker and Vin Diesel vs. the ProducersAfter the success of “The Fast and the Furious,” Diesel turned down at least $20 million to appear in the 2003 sequel, leaving Walker to reprise his role in “2 Fast 2 Furious” without his co-star. A third film, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” starred neither, which Walker attributed to “politics, studio stuff, a regime decision” (though Diesel did make a cameo appearance). By the time a fourth film was proposed, Walker felt he was finished with the franchise: He told The Los Angeles Times that he found the material “stale” and questioned “if there was even an audience anymore” for another movie. It took Diesel to persuade him to put his reservations aside and sign on. “I thought, ‘Why not?’” Walker said.Dom and Brian vs. HobbsWith “Fast Five” (2011), the street-racing franchise transformed into a heist flick: Brian, Dom and the rest of their fast-driving crew head to Rio de Janeiro to steal a safe full of cash from a nefarious drug kingpin. In hot pursuit is the big-biceped Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), an agent with the Diplomatic Security Service whose motor skills rival Brian and Dom’s. They have no choice but to put up a fight — a conflict resolved in later films when Hobbs joins their team.Dwayne Johnson vs. Vin DieselIn summer 2016, toward the end of production on the eighth installment, “The Fate of the Furious,” Johnson surprised fans when he appeared to criticize the cast: “My female co-stars are amazing and I love ’em. My male co-stars however are a different story,” he wrote in a now-deleted caption on Instagram. “Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t,” adding some colorful expletives denigrating the men. Many assumed he was calling out Diesel — a hunch later confirmed by both actors, who said they did not share any scenes together. Johnson has since slammed Diesel as “manipulative,” and he did not appear in “F9” or “Fast X.”Letty vs. the CrewDom’s wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), died in the fourth entry, “Fast & Furious” (2009), at the hands of a drug lord and his right-hand man during an undercover bust gone wrong. But she made a dramatic — if somewhat far-fetched — return two films later, revealed to have survived the explosion that seemed to kill her but suffering from amnesia. She spends the bulk of “Fast & Furious 6” (2013) on the villains’ side, fighting Dom and the crew without remembering who they are, until she’s won over by the sight of a precious heirloom. Dom works to restore Letty’s memory throughout “Furious 7.”Shaw (and Shaw) vs. the CrewThe antagonist of “Furious 6” is the nefarious British agent Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a hardened, elite soldier ultimately defeated by Dom and his crew. “Furious 7” (2015) introduces a brother out for revenge: one Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the more ruthless sibling, who wants blood after our heroes landed Owen in a coma. Deckard has had wavering allegiances throughout the films, occasionally teaming up with Dom and company and, in the spinoff “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” partnering with Johnson’s Shaw in a classic buddy action scenario.Tyrese Gibson vs Dwayne JohnsonAfter the public remarks by Johnson about his male co-stars, Tyrese Gibson — who has appeared in seven “Fast and Furious” movies as the fan favorite Roman Pearce — seemed to turn on his fellow actor. On Instagram, he appeared to object to Johnson making the 2019 spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw,” claiming that Johnson “purposely ignored the heart-to-heart” they had by moving forward with it, and that by refusing to appear in subsequent “Fast” films with Diesel and others, he “really broke up the #FastFamily.” Johnson never responded, and in late 2020, Gibson said that the two had “peaced up” and resolved the dispute.Michelle Rodriguez vs. the Franchise2001: After signing on to play the female lead in the original “Fast and the Furious,” Rodriguez vociferously objected to her character’s intended role as the trophy girlfriend, demanding that the filmmakers rewrite Letty to be more independent-minded. She particularly took issue with a story line that put her in a love triangle with Dom and Brian: “I basically cried and said I’m going to quit,” she told The Daily Beast in 2015. Her objections were taken seriously, and ultimately the love triangle was scrapped and the character changed.2017: In an Instagram post to mark the digital release of “Fate of the Furious,” Rodriguez made the surprising announcement that she “just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise,” unless “they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one.” Happily, Rodriguez committed to reprising her role in “F9” (2021) and beyond after reaching an agreement with Universal that brought on a female screenwriter.Justin Lin vs. Vin DieselThe director Justin Lin, who had previously helmed five of the “Fast” movies, was set to direct the latest entry, “Fast X,” but dramatically quit after shooting began. According to The Hollywood Reporter, heavy-handed studio notes, changing locations and near-constant updates to the screenplay contributed to the creative conflicts that sent Lin packing, but the final straw was a meeting with Diesel, who had some notes of his own. The meeting is alleged to have ended with a slammed door and Lin’s stepping down. Diesel obliquely acknowledged the conflict in an interview with Total Film, saying, “It wasn’t an easy time,” and adding, “Nothing but love for Justin, and nothing but gratitude for the work that he did to get us to that first week of filming.” The replacement director, Louis Leterrier, said in that interview that when he took over, he asked, “‘OK, what did Justin do? Can I see storyboards? Can I see shot lists?’ I took it all in. And then you find your bearings, and it becomes yours.” More

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      ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Premieres at Cannes

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      After paying tribute to an emotional Harrison Ford, the festival unspooled the newest sequel to decidedly mixed results. On Thursday, Harrison Ford stood before a rapturous crowd at the Cannes Film Festival and reminded us that Tom Cruise isn’t the last movie star.Ford, here with the latest “Indiana Jones” sequel, didn’t arrive at his premiere with a retinue of fighter jets, as Cruise did last year for “Top Gun: Maverick.” Instead Ford, now 80, gave the festival and the volubly appreciative audience exactly what it wanted and needed: glamour, yes, but also soul, emotion, that familiar crinkly smile and a lot of great history.That history was on display in a snappy, coherently edited homage that got the evening started. The salute took off with a clip from Agnès Varda’s “The World of Jacques Demy” (1995), itself a feature-length tribute to her husband that’s a reminder of Ford’s French connections. In the late 1960s, Demy had wanted to cast the then-unknown Ford in “Model Shop” but couldn’t convince the studio to hire him. Demy settled for another actor, but he and Varda remained friends with Ford. It’s a blast when the actor, looking at the camera, says with a smile, “I’m told that the studio said to forget me, that I had no future in this business.”After racing through other career touchstones like “Blade Runner” and “Star Wars,” the homage culminated with a title card that proclaimed Ford “one of the greatest stars in the history of cinema.” It’s no wonder that when Ford took to the stage of the Lumière theater, which with some 2,000 seats is imposingly large, he looked so visibly moved. By his side was the festival’s director, Thierry Frémaux, who, speaking in English, gushed about Ford as giddily as a kid who’s still high after seeing Indy onscreen for the first time. Rather anticlimactically, Frémaux also presented Ford an honorary Palme d’Or.“I’m very touched, I’m very moved by this,” Ford said. “They say that when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes. And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life. My life has been enabled by my lovely wife,” he continued, looking out into the audience at Calista Flockhart. He then told the attendees that he loved them — people shouted, “We love you!” in return — and after a few more sweetly gruff words, Ford reminded the room that “I have a movie you ought to see.”That movie, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” — oops, I mean “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” — was, alas, a disappointment and not just because a funny, misty-eyed and charming Harrison Ford proclaiming his love in the flesh to fans is a tough act to follow. One problem is that the movie itself plays like a greatest-hits reel. It’s stuffed with Nazis, chase sequences, explosions, crashes and what seems like almost every adventure-film cliché that the series has deployed and recycled since it began, though unlike the Cannes reel, there’s nothing snappy about this 154-minute slog.It’s too bad. Ford certainly deserves better, and the director James Mangold can do better. (He shares script credit with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp.) Mangold has toggled between Hollywood and indiewood throughout his career, with credits that include “Cop Land,” an indie crime drama with Sylvester Stallone, and “Logan,” one of the finest Marvel-superhero movies. “Logan” was especially striking simply because Mangold managed to put his own stamp on material that all too often is so deliberately generic and industrial that the results could have come off an assembly line.“The Dial of Destiny” — the title alone didn’t bode well — isn’t terrible. It’s at once overstuffed and anemic, both too much and not nearly enough. It’s also wildly unmodulated for roughly the first half. It opens in 1944 Europe with Indy being manhandled by Nazis amid a lot of choreographed chaos, his head covered in a cloth bag. When the bag comes off, it reveals a distractingly digitally de-aged Ford, looking kind-of-but-not-really like he looked in the first couple of films. A lot happens and happens again, mostly character introductions, explanations and stuff whirring rapidly.The movie improves in the second half, slowing and quieting down enough for the actors to do more than run, grimace and shout. By then, the casting of Fleabag, a.k.a. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as Indy’s latest partner-in-adventure makes sense, whether she’s quipping or flexing her action-chick muscles. She’s fun to watch, as are Mads Mikkelsen, Toby Jones and Antonio Banderas, who exit and enter with winks and sneers. Of course the real attraction here is Ford, who holds your attention when the movie doesn’t and whose every wisecrack, flirty gaze and slow burn make it clear that he didn’t have to be de-aged because — as everyone in that vibrating room at Cannes knew — he’s immortal. More

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      ‘The Taking’ Review: This Land Is Not Your Land

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      Monument Valley embodies the Old West. But the fantasies presented in Westerns obscure its darker history and the lives of the Navajo people who inhabit it.Whether it’s John Wayne films or Chevrolet ads, Monument Valley has been immortalized in the American imagination as a symbol of this nation’s vast potential. “The Taking,” a new documentary directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, examines the site’s complicated position as a representation of the Old West despite being located on Navajo land.In the film, images and clips of movies, TV shows and advertising campaigns that have traditionally featured Monument Valley are accompanied by voice-overs that explain how white cowboys have been viewed as heroes and Native Americans as aggressors, obscuring a history of genocide and oppression.The film argues that perhaps no one has been more central to this effort than the director John Ford, who used the region as the backdrop for his western movies, with the dramatic landscape evoking and perpetuating ideals of freedom and liberation central to his stories of rugged cowboys and villainous “Indians.”Obscured in this myth making is the reality of the Navajo people, many of whom still live in the region without running water or access to stable incomes. “The Taking” is successful in demonstrating the way in which Monument Valley has become a canvas onto which the public can superimpose their own ideas and myths. But had it included more current images of the region and the realities of the Navajo people, it may have been more effective in replacing these myths, going beyond film analysis to altering imagination.The TakingNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Stay Awake’ Review: Becoming Their Mother’s Caretakers

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      This story of a small-town family impacted by addiction succeeds in humanizing its characters but falters when it tries to include a coming-of-age tale.Jamie Sisley’s narrative feature directorial debut, “Stay Awake,” is not a novel story for those with a family member or loved one struggling with addiction. A small-town drama, the film stars Wyatt Oleff and Fin Argus as two teenage brothers, Ethan and Derek, who are forced to become caregivers for their mother, Michelle (Chrissy Metz), after she becomes dependent on prescription painkillers. It’s an all-too-familiar scenario across the United States, and the highs, lows and disappointments that Michelle and her sons face throughout her rocky treatment are both incredibly human and unfortunately predictable.“Stay Awake” does its best to center both its addiction story and Ethan and Derek’s own separate coming-of-age arcs, all without demonizing any of its characters.It’s an admirable goal that sometimes comes off as clunky and meandering, such as when Ethan awkwardly breaks up with his girlfriend by revealing he plans to go to a different college. The ensuing drama doesn’t quite match up to the life-or-death stakes present elsewhere in the film, or even to other situations Ethan faces, like having a secret crush on a male classmate. Despite such shortcomings, Oleff, Argus and Metz succeed in depicting both the frustrations and the compassion associated with caring for relatives who continuously harm themselves.Stay AwakeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Butterfly Vision’ Review: A Ukrainian Soldier’s Lonely Struggle

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      A traumatized woman returns home from eastern Ukraine after being held captive by Russian separatists.In the relentlessly bleak military drama “Butterfly Vision,” Lilia (Rita Burkovska) is a Ukrainian drone pilot struggling to readjust to life on the home front after enduring months in captivity at the hands of Russian separatists in the Donbas region.The story begins as Lilia makes the trek home, where she tends to an array of keloid scars and a flood of disturbing memories. She receives limited support from her anguished mother (Myroslava Vytrykhovska-Makar) and even less from her husband, Tokha (Lyubomyr Valivots), an extremist militia member who seems capable of accessing only two frames of mind: seething rancor or violent rage.This series of upsetting events grows even more dire, though, after we learn that Lilia was raped while captive and has become pregnant as a result.From the outset, the director, Maksym Nakonechnyi, establishes a cinematic language that incorporates footage from various sources: livestream feeds, aerial drone video, broadcast news B-roll. Perhaps the film’s most audacious choice is to use the texture of these formats — their lags, distortion and pixelation — when conveying Lilia’s daily torrent of post-traumatic stress. The effect is jarring, and feels less like a window into her experience than a brash camera trick.But “Butterfly Vision” distinguishes itself in its setting. The film was made before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and its story captures an early wartime phase when attitudes toward the conflict were divided. In one scene, Lilia boards a bus and claims exemption from the fare because of her status as a veteran. Vexed and disapproving, the driver and passengers raise a ruckus until she disembarks. The film might aim to deliver an aesthetic and emotional jolt, but it is the mundane, interpersonal moments that linger.Butterfly VisionNot rated. In Ukrainian, English and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      ‘The Night of the 12th’ Review: When a Case Doesn’t Close

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      This refreshingly grounded French crime procedural portrays what happens when a brutal murder case eludes the diligent efforts of a by-the-book investigator.Police procedurals don’t usually start by saying that the crime at hand will not be solved. But Dominik Moll’s “The Night of the 12th” does just that, and then watches a French investigator labor away at a murder case before reluctantly abandoning it. This is a refreshingly grounded, deceptively plain picture of crime-fighting as a grind of false leads, workplace fatigue and no closure.Walking home late from a party, Clara, a joyful teenager (Lula Cotton Frapier), is doused in fuel by a hooded stranger and set on fire. Yohan (Bastien Bouillon), an extremely square new leader of a judicial police unit, questions a series of sketchy and dismissive guys that Clara may have been involved with, turning up no definitive answers. Clara’s friend offers one answer that neatly sums up the misogyny of being subject to such random brutality: it was because she was a girl.Likely suspects emerge, then fall away; phone call audio is analyzed, to no avail. After a few years, a judge takes interest in the cold case, funding new surveillance. But even though the inexpressive Yohan does seem like one of the good guys, he’s going in circles, and can’t even help his burned-out partner, Marceau (Bouli Lanners).Despite all the best intentions, “cracking a case” just doesn’t happen sometimes, and the movie (based on a nonfiction book by Pauline Guéna) matter-of-factly avoids the magical thinking we’ve absorbed from decades of macho crime-fighting yarns. Instead, it’s a matter of coping with long-term, slow-motion frustrations and failure — something sadly closer to a lot of common experience than save-the-day heroism.The Night of the 12thNot rated. In French with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘White Building’ Review: Coming of Age in Cambodia

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      Kavich Neang’s lush feature tells a largely autobiographical tale of growing up in a building whose often painful history is a microcosm of his country’s.The title of Kavich Neang’s richly observed feature, “White Building,” is, first of all, an exaggeration: The dilapidated apartment bloc it describes is so chipped and black with soot that it’s barely white; indeed, it is so falling apart that it’s barely a building.But for Samnang (Piseth Chhun), the young protagonist of this sensitive and largely autobiographical coming-of-age portrayal, it is home, as the real-life White Building it is based on was for Neang.Located in central Phnom Penh, the building is an apt symbol of the often excruciating changes Cambodia has endured over the last 60 years. It was built in the 1960s to house civil servants, then emptied during the Khmer Rouge’s forced relocations of the 1970s. In the ’80s, it became home to working class people like Samnang’s diabetic father (Sithan Hout), who, like Neang’s, is a sculptor. Now its inhabitants are being pushed to take a lousy deal so it can be demolished for new development, in a city they can no longer afford.Unlike his parents, Samnang has no memories of the Khmer Rouge. He and his friends grew up with cellphones and hip-hop, and they dream of becoming a famous dance troupe. They want what other boys of their generation want: girlfriends, Nikes, a chance to prove themselves.Neang excels at that Tarkovskian trick of rendering the small details of decay — a cracked tile, a leaking ceiling — with such lived-in precision that they feel somehow specific and surreal at once; like the title, images strain their own semantic boundaries. The film’s loose plotting and secondary character development can leave a few too many hanging threads, but its sense of place is so palpable you can almost smell the smoky city markets, the sweat, the hormones.White BuildingNot rated. In Khmer, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More