Historically accurate movies about the CIA can be thrilling or scary, occasionally moving, and often appalling. But they’re not usually funny.
That’s about to change with the release of Wild Horse Nine, the new movie from Martin McDonagh, the ace Irish filmmaker who brought us In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin. It’s a black comedy wrapped around a political thriller, set against the backdrop of infamous American foreign policy decisions, circa 1973.
The magic is in the casting: John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell star as Chris Carlisle and Lee Chesterfield, two agents in Santiago in the weeks just before a military coup will oust Chile’s democratically elected president. They’re there for a reason. Chris is a veteran spook; Lee is Chris’ longtime protégé/caretaker. They have seen some shit.
Things get peculiar when their CIA boss (Steve Buscemi) sends them to Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island. Secrets are revealed, and Chris makes a spiritual connection with the giant Rapa Nui statues. Like in so many of McDonagh’s films, the dark comedy is a kind of side door into more intimate spaces of drama and character study. Also in the cast: Parker Posey, Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas, and Tom Waits.
This cast, with this director, makes Wild Horse Nine as close to a sure thing as you can get in the movies. (McDonagh wrote the script, too). Reviews from the Venice International Film Festival are uncommonly enthusiastic, and in fact, Malkovich won the fest’s Volpi Cup prize for Best Actor.
Meanwhile, check your local art house bookings this month for the micro-indie drama If I Go Will They Miss Me. A word-of-mouth success at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s the second narrative feature film from writer-director Walter Thompson-Hernández, expanding his own 2022 short film of the same name.
A coming-of-age story set in the LA working-class neighborhood of Watts, the story follows 12-year-old Anthony (“Lil Ant”), who idolizes his absent father (“Big Ant”). Lil Ant is a good student with a vivid imagination, presently obsessed with Greek gods and airplanes. His neighborhood is directly underneath the LAX flight corridor, and low-flying behemoths are just a part of his world.
Director Thompson-Hernández leverages the visual and archetypal dynamics of Lil Ant’s obsessions—gods and airplanes—to create a mythology specific to his story, his characters, and their neighborhood. Check out the clips and trailers online to get a sense of the powerful resonance of the filmmaker’s dreamlike images.
Thompson-Hernández is a veteran journalist and former reporter for The New York Times. He’s also a bold visual stylist given to surreal and painterly compositions. It’s a pretty good combination for storytelling, clearly.
A third option for November comes in straight from Japan: Godzilla Minus Zero invites viewers to reacquaint themselves with the world’s most famous kaiju monster, updated for the 21st century with cutting-edge special effects. It’s a direct sequel to the 2023 international blockbuster Godzilla Minus One and the 39th Godzilla film in the official franchise. Thirty-ninth!
Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki returns for the new film, which is set in 1949 as Japan recovers from the very specific horrors it endured in World War II. Advance word suggests that the story features a familiar old kaiju attacking the city—the three-headed dragon known to franchise devotees as King Ghidorah.
But don’t worry if you’re new to the party. Director Yamazaki has been credited with rejuvenating the franchise by introducing emotional story elements to support the special effects, plus lots of sociological allegory to chew on. It’s not just about giant monster fights. But, that said, it’s mostly about giant monster fights, which is why you want to see it on the big screen. Bear in mind that the 2023 movie won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Quick Picks
The Spanish historical epic La Bola Negra uses an alternating-timeline structure to profile three queer men in three different eras, and their connection to the work of playwright Federico García Lorca. The film has won major awards at several festivals worldwide.
John Turturro headlines the indie crime thriller The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, about an aging old-school thief who steals a USB device and learns, the hard way, about cryptocurrency and two-factor authentication.
The black-and-white biographical drama Fatherland, from acclaimed Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski, follows exiled German writer Thomas Mann as he returns home via a road trip with his daughter. It’s the third installment of Pawlikowski’s historical trilogy concerning the complexities of post-WWII Europe, along with Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018).
The big-budget mythological epic Ramayana: Part One, based on the Sanskrit epic poem, is said to be the most expensive Indian film ever made. Local theaters are booking both the original Hindi-language cut plus an English-dubbed version using AI lip-sync technology. Heads up that Part Two is at least a year away, according to reports.
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