Good news for the ass-end of this terrible winter: February brings a weird little clutch of intriguing films to local theaters, starting with three specimens from science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Resurrection, from ascendant Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan, is actually five or six movies stitched into one. The premise involves a near-future scenario in which humankind has achieved maximum longevity and efficiency. The trade-off? We’ve lost our ability to dream.
Gan structures his film as an extended chase sequence through the mind of the world’s last rogue dreamer—five nested stories that each evoke a particular style of cinema. The result is a phantasmagoric tour of movies-as-dreams, with astounding imagery and painstaking production design. German expressionism bleeds over into stop-motion animation, or 1940s noir, or what-have-you. There’s a vampire involved, and Chinese folklore, and a climactic 40-minute single-take scene that everyone is talking about.
Resurrection features location shooting in several Asian and European cities, and it won the Special Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Find it on a big screen if you can.
In similar spirit, director Gore Verbinski (The Ring) returns with the sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, which offers another speculative vision to chew on. The inimitable Sam Rockwell headlines as The Man from the Future, a desperate time traveler tasked with averting an AI apocalypse. The trick is that he must assemble a band of heroes from among the customers in a random L.A. diner.
If the story set-up seems familiar, that’s on purpose. Screenwriter Matthew Robinson deliberately splashes about in familiar tropes and movie moments—bits of Groundhog Day are in here, and the Terminator films, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Plus: gamer culture, simulation theory, and our accelerating AI anxieties. The meta storytelling generates a self-aware Möbius strip style of comedy—and quite successfully, according to early reviews.
The cast includes Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña, and the very funny British comedian Asim Chaudhry. But Sam Rockwell is all you really need to know. He’s always the most interesting guy in whatever movie he’s in.
Finally, from the horror movie aisle, the darkly comic survival thriller Send Help may be the new year’s most thoroughly cathartic movie experience. Rachel McAdams plays a put-upon corporate employee whose boss—a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot—is about to steal away her long-awaited promotion. But when a plane crash deposits the two on a remote island together, power dynamics get switched up nicely. Who’s the boss now?
The real selling point here (aside from McAdams) is director Sam Raimi, who made his fortune with the Spider-Man movies. But old-school fans will remember the hallucinogenic B-movie energy he brought to early films like the Evil Dead trilogy and Darkman. That’s the vibe he’s riding with Send Help, which is also earning critical points for a very clever script hiding twists within twists.
It’s a solid movie-night pick for anyone who daydreams of vivid justice served upon corrupt and illegitimate authority on the personal, professional, or federal level. Nothing wrong with a feel-good movie now and again.
Quick picks
Margot Robbie and Australian hottie Jacob Elordi play Catherine and Heathcliff in the much-anticipated adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 romance, Wuthering Heights. Corsets! Repressed desire! Breathless passion on the Yorkshire moors!
Several local theaters are holding over the Brazilian political thriller The Secret Agent, set in the 1970s and starring Wagner Moura, since it was nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards.
Falconry enthusiasts will want to be aware of H is for Hawk, the film adaptation of author Helen Macdonald’s acclaimed 2014 memoir about grief and the healing power of nature.
A big hit on the festival circuit, the dark romantic comedy/drama Pillion stars Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård in a raunchy-but-tender BDSM love story.
Families looking for an alternative kids’ movie may want to check out Arco, a French animated fantasy film with ecological themes and a ten-year-old hero from the year 2932.
Another four-letter family-film option: The animated sports comedy Goat tells the tale of, that’s right, an anthropomorphic goat determined to become the greatest of all time.
The heist thriller Crime 101 follows a jewel thief trying to pull off one last score. Chris Hemsworth plays the lead, which is unfortunate, but the supporting cast includes Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and—hey, is that Nick Nolte? It is!
The Carolina Theatre in Durham will host the 27th Nevermore Film Festival from Feb. 27 through March 1. Nevermore is an international competition festival specializing in stories from the dark side—horror, science fiction, dark fantasy, animation, and mystery/thrillers.
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