By Howard Barbanel
Welcome to the July 4th weekend – a time of beaches, barbeques, ball games and also a time to space-out watching a great movie, especially if it rains on your parade for a day or two. Here are seven superb cinematic options that I highly recommend:
Perfect Days ★★★★★
In probably the most potent collaboration between Japan and Germany since World War II, the creative energies of acclaimed and multiple award-winning director Wim Wenders (“Paris, Texas”, “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Wings of Desire”) and Japanese screenwriter Takuma Takasaki combine to create a breathtakingly beautiful and moving work of art. The film could be also titled “Zen and the Art of Lavatory Maintenance.”
Starring Kōji Yakusho as Hirayama, a painfully withdrawn middle-aged man who cleans public toilets in modern-day Tokyo. At first, we seem to be spying on a life of quiet desperation but as the film progresses we see it’s a quiet life of serenity, almost as though he were tending a Japanese rock garden or a grove of bonsai trees. The ancient Japanese way of the Samurai gets channeled into the most mundane tasks. Wax on, wax off.
Yakusho carries the first half of the film practically solo and with minimal dialog. His face does the talking. It will remind you of the marooned segment with Tom Hanks in “Castaway.” The film unfolds over a couple of weeks and we also get to see fabulous stylized night dream sequences which separate each day from the next. More characters are gradually introduced as the movie progresses and each adds an important dimension to the story. Yakusho won the Best Actor Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the film was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 96th Academy Awards.
As a single man of a certain age who also has his ingrained daily rituals and schedule, the film resonated with me as I’m sure it will for many of the unattached.
Deeply moving, uplifting, spiritual and reverential, “Perfect Days” is really a perfect movie. Incidentally, “Perfect Days” has a very cool 60s and 70s soundtrack too.
Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes ★★★★]
There’s nothing Zen whatsoever in this latest iteration of the seemingly infinite installments of the “Apes” franchise that began way back in 1968 with Charlton Heston as marooned astronaut Taylor who finds himself on a planet run by apes. The producers have done a couple of prequel reboots and this movie predates the ’68 granddaddy in the story line perhaps a couple of hundred years in the “Apes” timeline. There are some noted visual homages to that original flick but otherwise this is an original, stand-alone story.
“Kingdom” takes place an unspecified number of years after the last “Apes” flick, “War for the Planet of the Apes,” which starred Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis (2017). In the timeline of the past three movies, most of humanity has been wiped out by an unspecified man-made virus that either left most humans without the ability to speak and with diminished brain function or killed them altogether. Some intelligent humans have managed to survive the virus either by developing a resistance or by quarantining themselves from the world.
As with a great many Hollywood action movies today, the heroic figure is often a woman, clearly with the feminist objective of redressing 80 or 90 years of leading men and damsels in distress. In “Kingdom,” that character is played with an American accent by British actress Freya Allan whose most notable prior experience was as Princess Cirilla of Cintra in the Netflix series The Witcher. Allan is on a mission to retrieve some prior human technology for her colony of locked-down intelligent humans. Concurrent with this is the story of a community of sensitive, peaceful eagle-breeding and farming apes which is devastated by a megalomanic gorilla, the self-styled “Proximus Caesar,” (the “King” in “Kingdom”) played by Kevin Durand. The new Caesar has a marauding army of gorilla cavalry rounding up other, weaker apes to serve as slaves in his effort to somehow pry open a human fortress chock full of weapons and tech.
The would-be leader of the peaceful ape survivors, Noa, played by Owen Teague and Freya Allan’s “Nova/Mae” come together while fleeing from the marauding forces of Proximus Caesar and eventually forge an alliance. Much of the movie takes off from there.
Definitely not a kid’s film. It’s actually kind of dark and at times violent and brutal with no neat, happy ending (probably for sequel purposes) for either apes or humans. If you’ve watched the prior nine “Apes” movies you’ll definitely enjoy it as will fans of sci-fi dystopia.
Furiosa ★★★★
The 79 year-old Aussie filmmaker George Miller has been making “Mad Max” movies since 1979. Miller has directed every single one of the five “Max” films. The original and first two sequels ignited the career of Mel Gibson.
For those among the uninitiated, the “Mad Max” saga takes place in a heavily dystopian post-nuclear apocalyptic Australian desert hinterland where might makes right and everyone seems strung-out on some kind of uppers or LSD. The culture revolves around souped-up and jerry-rigged cars, trucks and motorcycles careening into each other in a giant demolition derby with power as the winning prize.
In 2015, Miller produced one of his very best “Max” films, “Mad Max: Fury Road” starring Charlize Theron as Furiosa and Tom Hardy replacing Gibson as Max. The film “Furiosa” is a sequel that is actually a prequel, taking place 15 to 20 years prior to the story in “Fury Road.” It is the Furiosa origin story and Max literally isn’t in the picture. Anya Taylor Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit” for which she won a Golden Globe Award) plays the younger Furiosa character years before she becomes Theron’s version of the character. Miller also brings back most of the cast of crazed character actors from “Fury Road” and through the miracles of AI presents them as appreciably younger than in “Fury Road” although they’re really nine years older in real life.
New to Max-land is Chris Hemsworth as Dr. Dementus, a really, really bad, bad guy. Hemsworth is brilliant in the role and is a far better Dr. Dementus in my view than as Thor, the God of Thunder in the Marvel film series.
“Furiosa” has pretty much nonstop vehicular action, special effects, violence, endless arrogance and snark. Very entertaining. “Fury Road” is a star ahead (meaning Theron) than “Furiosa,” but this is still an excellent action picture that should prompt you to start watching all five movies (if you’ve not already) so you can be plugged into the Maxverse.
Two Documentaries –
Being Mary Tyler Moore and Remembering Gene Wilder. Both ★★★★
Two very beloved actors each deservedly merit their own sentimental documentaries. Mary Tyler Moore on Max and Gene Wilder on Netflix. Both Moore and Wilder brought no end of joy to millions of fans and these biographies show you how and why along with the stories of how they both rose essentially from nothing and nowhere to become comedic icons.
Moore was a television force starting with the 1960s “Dick Van Dyck Show” (1961-1966) which was written and produced by the great Carl Reiner. Her career segued into “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” one of the top ten TV sitcoms of the 1970s, running from 1970-1977 and pulling the plug at the top of its ratings. There were dry spells between and after each series but also some dramatic triumphs such as the 1980 film “Ordinary People” and on Broadway where she won a Tony Award for “Whose Life Is It Anyway.” Moore is also shown as very much a real human being and had more than her fair share of disappointment and tragedy. Excellent interviews and clips of Moore and a lot of the people who loved and worked with her. You’ll need a tissue.
The late Gene Wilder was a lovable guy and “Remembering Gene Wilder” chronicles the love affair the audience had with him and his love of his craft and the pleasing that audience.
Wilder was that rare talent who could give you belly laughs and make you shed a tear all in the same performance. Gifted with impeccable comedic timing but also with a deep sense of pathos and genuine warmth, Wilder was the funny, likeable schlub who could rise to improbable heights fueled by a neurotic mania that you couldn’t get enough of.
Sometimes how your life works out is based on both who you know and being in the right place at the right time. Talent also helps but there are plenty of talented people who go nowhere. Wilder started out on Broadway. He loved the stage and worked regularly. Hollywood wasn’t among his early dreams. By chance he did a play with Anne Bancroft in 1963. Bancroft was married to Mel Brooks. Brooks was writing a screenplay that would eventually become “The Producers,” (1967) which was Wilder’s breakout screen role. Brooks and Wilder would form a lifelong partnership and friendship that would lead to such major hits as “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” Also, part of the Wilder oeuvre are “The Frisco Kid” which featured the first major role for Harrison Ford in 1979, the four movies with Richard Pryor (“Stir Crazy,” etc.) and of course his immortal role as Willy Wonka back in 1971.
“Remembering Gene Wilder” also delves heavily into his joy and heartbreak over his marriage to the late Gilda Radner. Interviews with Brooks, other colleagues and family members make this movie a love letter to one of the comedy greats of the 20th Century.
