Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies. |
This newsletter is many things, among them a consistent and unabashed proselytizer for the inspired lunacy of Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 film “Megalopolis.” Which is why we are so excited that the film is showing Friday through Monday at the Gardena Cinema with special guests for the live in-theater performance that is an unforgettable part of the movie. If you have not had a chance to see the daring, without-a-net performances of Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza and the rest of the cast, it is worth any effort to change that. Wow Platinum forever. |
Here’s the best of what’s playing around town this week: |
20 years of Nolan’s sleight-of-hand delight |
 |
Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman in the movie “The Prestige.” (Francois Duhamel / Touchstone / Warner Bros. Pictures) |
Landing between “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige” is, as of now, the last time he made a movie remotely at human scale, before his turn to the relentlessly epic, building toward this summer’s “The Odyssey.” Starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival magicians in 1890s London (David Bowie also makes an inspired appearance as Nikola Tesla), “The Prestige” itself comes to feel like a magic trick that bears close attention and multiple viewings. The American Cinematheque screens the film at the Aero Theatre on Saturday in a 35mm print to mark its 20 anniversary. |
Reviewing the film when it first came out, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Intent on keeping us off-balance and unnerved at all times, ‘The Prestige’ presents a head-turning narrative that doubles back and forth between protagonists and time frames in a way that is frankly easier to watch and enjoy than fully explain.” |
|
|
Lando Calrissian in-person with ‘Empire’ |
 |
Billy Dee Wiliams, center, as Lando Calrissian in the 1980 movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” (Lucasfilm Ltd.) |
“The Empire Strikes Back” ranks high on anyone’s list of the best “Star Wars” movies, putting a moodier, more emotional cast on the intergalactic swashbuckling and outer space aerial dogfights while deepening the saga’s internal mythology. The movie that introduced Yoda — leading the way to this summer’s “The Mandalorian and Grogu” — it is also the one that gave us Lando Calrissian, a suave gambler turned shady local administrator played by Billy Dee Williams. Williams, now 89, is scheduled to appear at the Academy Museum on Saturday along with a 4K screening of “Empire.” |
In his original review of “Empire,” Charles Champlin called it, “a hugely accomplished and exciting follow-on to ‘Star Wars’ … another richly imaginative, engrossing and spectacular motion picture from the redoubtable George Lucas.” |
|
|
L.A.’s ’80s punk scene revisited |
 |
The Germs’ Darby Crash in 1981’s “The Decline of Western Civilization.” (Nu-Image Film) |
A live-wire document of a thrilling moment in the history of Los Angeles music, Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization” captures punk bands like X, the Germs, Fear, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks onstage and off, creating a sense of what the scene was like at the time. Spheeris would go on to make two more “Decline” docs, capturing the glam-metal era of the ’80s and the gutter punks of the 1990s. |
The film is playing the American Cinematheque’s Los Feliz Theater as part of a series inspired by Xan Cassavetes’ 2004 doc “Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession,” about the early L.A. pay cable station, an influential part of the city’s movie culture. A panel discussion will follow a screening on May 14, while other films playing in the series include Michael Cimino’s 1974 “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” Sam Peckinpah’s 1974 “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and the director’s cut of Sergio Leone’s career-capping “Once Upon a Time in America.” |
| Keep up with California |
Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Fincher’s grimy triumph |
 |
Brad Pitt, left, and Morgan Freeman in David Fincher’s 1995 crime thriller “Seven.” (Peter Sorel / New Line Cinema) |
A combination of slick, studied visuals and confidently depraved storytelling, David Fincher’s 1995 “Seven” is unquestionably one of the pinnacles of the serial-killer movie. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are mismatched detectives on the hunt for a madman enacting crimes in the style of the seven deadly sins. On Wednesday, the film screens at the Academy Museum in 4K with production designer Arthur Max and set decorator Clay Griffith in attendance for a Q&A. |
In a 2024 Times interview about the film, Fincher recalled first reading the script and getting to the page when the long-shrouded villain turns himself in — but realizing there would be some 20 minutes left to the movie. |
“I remember being in an agitated, elevated state going: Wait a minute. This can’t happen,” Fincher said. “I don’t have experience with a narrative that can reinvent itself in the last 20 pages. And then I got to the head in the box and I was like: Count me in.” |
A Tony Scott and Denzel Washington tribute |
 |
Denzel Washington in the movie “Unstoppable.” (Robert Zuckerman / 20th Century Fox) |
This May, the New Beverly Cinema will spotlight the partnership between late director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington. The pair collaborated on a series of high-energy pictures, including “Man on Fire” and “Crimson Tide,” reinvigorating the dad-friendly, cable-ready action flick. (Quentin Tarantino, owner of the New Beverly, also collaborated with Scott on “True Romance.”) |
Playing Friday through Sunday, there will be a double bill of 2010’s “Unstoppable,” in which Washington attempts to stop a runaway freight train, along with Scott’s 2009 remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123.” |
In his original review of “Unstoppable,” Kenneth Turan called it, “‘as good as its name. A runaway train drama that never slows down, it fashions familiarity into a virtue and shows why old-school professionalism never goes out of style.” |
In one of those delightful only-in-L.A. coincidences, the original 1974 “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” directed by Joseph Sargent and starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, will be playing in 35mm at the Academy Museum on Saturday. See both versions! |
A chat with Barbara Kopple |
 |
An image from Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning 1976 documentary “Harlan County, USA.” (Janus Films) |
In acknowledgment of May Day — International Workers’ Day — two Academy Award-winning documentaries from Barbara Kopple, both focused on the clash between workers and management, labor and capital, are back in theaters. Playing at more that a dozen venues around the country, “Harlan County, USA” and “American Dream” will show locally at the American Cinematheque’s Los Feliz Theatre. |
“Harlan County, USA,” which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, looks at a labor conflict in a mining community in rural Kentucky. “American Dream,” from 1990, surveys the struggles of unionized workers at a meatpacking plant in Minnesota. |
“They’re just extraordinary stories,” Kopple, 79, said in an video interview earlier this week from her office in New York City. “How many times do you get to really understand who people are and what makes them tick and what makes them make certain decisions?” |
 |
Barbara Kopple, photographed at the Sundance Film Festival in January. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) |
Currently working on a film about delivery drivers and the modern gig-worker economy, Kopple has often said she does not consider herself a journalist and does not see her work as implicitly partisan. |
“I feel like I’m just telling stories,” said Kopple, “and I am honored that people will tell me what they’re feeling and what they’re doing and allow me in places that are so intimate, because they trust me. And I think that’s much more important than picking a side, is to have a whole picture and let an audience learn from it and feel it and see what they’re up against.” |
Getting docs made (and into theaters) on serious, substantial subjects remains a challenge — even for Oscar winners. |
“I think it’s hard for all of us,” said Kopple, “because the administration has taken away grants like the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. If anything has any social issue connected to it, you can’t get a grant. And it’s frightened other foundations. And money has always been a problem when you’re making documentaries. So we’re sort of the stepchildren. But I just figure that if we can make a film really good enough that it can be here 35 or 50 years later, these people’s histories will never be forgotten.” |
New this week |
 |
Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” (Macall Polay / 20th Century Studios) |
|
|
