For those who still like to leave the house to see a movie, Incoming! is a monthly feature spotlighting interesting films coming to local theaters. All the movies below are slated to play locally, but bookings change all the time, so check your online listings.
How’s this for an intriguing premise: Young Salvadoran toy designer Alejandro, rejected by toy conglomerate Hasbro’s talent incubator program, takes a job at a cryogenic corpse-stashing facility. Desperate for a visa sponsor, he teams up with an NYC art-world kook and works out his toughest dilemmas in a fever-dream alternate universe of the mind. Pretty good!
That’s the setup for Problemista, the surreal comedy from actor-director-screenwriter Julio Torres, former SNL writer and aspiring comedy auteur. The film premiered to enthusiastic reviews at last year’s SXSW festival and is getting a nationwide release from reliable indie distributor A24, which is a recommendation in itself.
Reviews from the festival circuit suggest that Problemista is that most valuable of commodities: an original vision shepherded from script to screen by one person’s unalloyed comic sensibilities—think Wes Anderson or Being John Malkovich. Critics are praising Torres’s ambitious screenplay, which tackles everything from NYC art-world weirdness to the byzantine horror of U.S. immigration policies. Also on board: Tilda Swinton, Greta Lee, Isabella Rossellini, and RZA.
For a darker night at the movies, the indie thriller Knox Goes Away is another film where the star is the director. This time, it’s Hollywood veteran Michael Keaton, who’s having a pretty great second-wind career. The setup—underworld hit man with dementia—sounds ridiculous on paper, but this is the kind of thing that can play out nicely in the heightened realm of neo-noir.
Keaton, at 72, is still a commanding performer. He’s got that movie star thing where you get nervous taking your eyes off him, lest something awesome happen when you’re not looking. The script is said to be pleasantly twisty with a great reveal, and Keaton is a proven filmmaker. His 2008 drama The Merry Gentleman is a good movie-night-at-home option. (Come to think of it, he plays a hit man in that one, too.)
For something completely different, the Spanish-French hand-drawn animated film Robot Dreams is getting you-must-see-this reviews worldwide. (It’s up for an Oscar this year.) The film defies synopsis, really, but the story follows the friendship of a robot and a dog in 1980s Manhattan and the enduring majesty of Earth, Wind & Fire’s classic song “September.” Find the trailer online for a sense of it all. The film is safe for kids and if you’re leery of subtitled movies, no problem: no dialogue!
Quick Picks
Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan headline the buzzy indie Asphalt City, based on true stories of NYC paramedics during the crack epidemic of the 1990s. For city vibes with a love story built in, Kristen Stewart stars in the gritty romantic thriller Love Lies Bleeding.
If you’re in the market for a big dumb popcorn movie, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire finds Earth’s two alpha kaijus teaming up to fight some new chthonic beastie. Bonus trivia: It’s the 38th Godzilla movie in franchise history, which dates back to 1958.
Straight from this year’s Sundance film festival, The American Society of Magical Negroes is a satirical comedy concerning the Hollywood trope of folksy Black people helping to make white people’s lives easier.
At seven p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, the Alamo in Raleigh will host a special Pulp Fiction screening with party favors including fake adrenaline hypodermics, candy Red Apple cigarettes, and a “Serious Gourmet Shit” coffee mug. No word on $5 milkshakes.
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