I Want Your Sex (c) Black Bear Pictures
Film: I Want Your Sex
In Cinemas on July 31
I didn’t know I missed director Gregg Araki’s unique voice and vision until I saw his first film in over 12 years, the quirky comedy, I Want Your Sex, which premiered at Sundance In January, with its only misstep being its risqué title - overkill if you know Araki’s filmography (Mysterious Skin, The Doom Generation). The film’s big surprise is actor Cooper Hoffman, who has done good work so far (The Long Walk, Saturday Night), but here he is really embracing the goofiness of his character, Elliot, a shaggy and aimless but easygoing guy who finds himself first as an intern to provocative visual artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) and then as her sexual partner. Araki has brought something out of Hoffman, who has never let loose like he does here, pointing towards the kind of symbiotically rich relationship his father Philip Seymour Hoffman had with visionary directors like Todd Solondz and Charlie Kauffman. Wilde is also having a ball as an artist that uses sex as her muse (I Want Your Sex and her other movie from this year, The Invite, have interchangeable titles that still work for both). Where the movie goes from here is part of the fun, so I’ll just say that Elliot gets into some outrageous situations (some with and without dildos), with ample support from Charli XCX as his couldn’t-care-less girlfriend, Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville as police detectives, Mason Gooding as his gay co-worker and seemingly his only friend and Daveed Diggs as Erika’s first-in-command. The one thing I couldn’t really figure out is the point of all these sometimes wild and sometimes tasteless shenanigans, not that there always need to be one for a comedy, but a more cohesive commentary about sexual autonomy could have provided added structural foundation. But it’s perfectly fine with just Greg Araki’s playful doodles, stylishly bright palette and some enjoyably campy set-pieces.
Motor City (c) Independent Film Company
Film: Motor City
In Cinemas
It takes about 20 minutes until the first word is spoken in Motor City, a violent new film by director Potsy Ponciroli, and it’s a parole officer who says, “Miller.” That Miller is John Miller (Alan Ritchson, who uses his oversized body to good use here), whom we already saw throw a dismembered man off a Detroit building, before a flashback to happier days when he’s working in a factory, about to propose to his waitress girlfriend, Sophia (Shailene Woodley, at her most House of Gucci Lady Gaga). Miller is on a high (he’s also finally finished his parole) when he is violently framed for drug possession by Sophia’s mobster ex-boyfriend, Reynolds (Ben Foster, looking like he just finished filming the sleazy boyfriend in Christy and rolled into this guy without a costume change). The rest of the movie is Miller’s plan (with help of his Marines buddies, played by Lionel Boyce and Amar Chadha-Patel) to escape prison and exact revenge. This is indeed a mostly dialogue-free film: Jack White does show up in a cameo singing a Christmas song at one point, while Sophia has the most lines–maybe five?–with everyone else just nodding, emoting and violently killing each other. This is a fun concept, although it’s hard to figure out what’s going on, as when good cop Kent (Ben McKenzie) goes into the office of bad cop Savick (Pablo Schreiber) with a file and Savick closes the door and shades. I assume they were doing some hanky-panky, but that might be the romantic in me. With no dialogue, the music does a lot of the heavy lifting with a dramatic score by Jablonsky, and this being 1977, banger needle drops include The Moody Blues’ “Night in White Satin” and one of the best 70s one-hit wonders, “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff ‘n the Tears. But then there’s the violence (is this IFC Films’ bloodiest release?), which gets more and more intense before we get to see why the body that Miller throws in the opening minutes of the film is dismembered. This is not for the faint of heart, but Ponciroli (Greedy People) pulls off his experiment with style…and a lot of blood.
The Odyssey (c) Universal Pictures
Film: The Odyssey
In Cinemas
Homer’s The Odyssey would seem like an odd choice for both writer/director Christopher Nolan and actor Matt Damon. But this action-packed, almost three-hour, unironic retelling of the Greek myth feels like a return to form for Nolan, as his hero Odysseus, the guilt-ridden rich king, is a variation of Bruce Wayne, who has to beat rounds of super-powered adversaries with wit and sword. For Damon, on the other hand, this is essentially a Greek remake of his film Gerry in which he spends the bulk of the film wandering in a desert, trying to find his way home. Hmm. This being a Nolan film, he does play with time, as the film presents two timelines simultaneously: Odysseus’ son, Telemachus (Tom Holland) in the present on his quest to find any information about his father’s fate after a 20-year absence, and Odysseus 20 years earlier after the fall of Troy and why he yet to make it back. Oh, and just in case you forgot English lit class and what happened in the first book, The Iliad, there’s an extended flashback within a flashback to the Trojan War and the horse the Greeks rode to victory. This is epic storytelling with big stars playing even the smallest roles: Helen of Troy is just a footnote but is still played by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o in essentially a cameo, while Samantha Morton gets more to do in her small but impactful role as Circe. This is the kind of storytelling Nolan is known for with great action set pieces but never losing focusing on his favorite theme: man’s hubris and our total disregard for eventual self-destruction. From the inventive score to the IMAX cinematography, this needs to be in the cinema. I still think Interstellar, however flawed it may be, has more ambition and vision. For summer entertainment, though, it doesn’t get more immersive and exciting than The Odyssey.
Heartstopper Forever (c) Netflix
Film: Heartstopper Forever
Streaming on Netflix
Heartstopper was a miracle series on Netflix. In the sea of shows set in high school, this quiet little British romance based on the graphic novels by Alice Oseman, became a sensation as it was a simple story of two boys slowly falling in love, a breath of fresh air for young queer viewers as well as for older folks who would never imagine a show normalizing the LGBTQ experience for young people. Teen Charlie (Joe Locke) and rugby golden retriever Nick (Kit Connor) start to flirt in the show’s first season (it premiered in 2022) with heart emojis and goofy “hi’s” in the hallways. With their supportive friend group in tow, the two have triumphed over the homophobia of their classmates with their dignity intact. Now in the new film that serves as the final chapter to the series, Nick is heading to Uni while Charlie has become head boy of Truman school. With the prospect of a long-term relationship finally dawning on them, stress starts to take its toll, especially on Nick, drowning his insecurities with alcohol, which leads ever-supportive Charlie to fall back into his eating disorder coping mechanism. Even though it’s only been four years since the show’s start, the cast has definitely aged out of their high school setting (not as severe as Stranger Things, perhaps). Still, the film doesn’t really have a cohesive and strong narrative to exist as they still seem to be dealing with the problems they had at the end of the last season, without much resolution. Yet the promise of the title is enough to go through the “we were on a break” storyline to have hope that our lovers will survive. Their extended friend group never get the chance to break out here, even though trans Elle (Yasmin Finley) has the most compelling narrative in need for proper closure (a lot is made of Charlie’s bravery coming out when he did, and it was, but imagine what Elle had to endure the year before when she came out trans). But, when the leaves start to swirl around our protagonists and they go through the greatest hits of their relationship (the beach, the hotel ballroom), we know all will end up with a nice bow. And that’s all we really wanted, our hearts stopped once again.
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