Photo © Universal Pictures
Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear
(In Theaters February 24)
The only thing Hollywood loves better than a film based on a true story is taking creative license with that same story. Here, those alterations see drug dealers and smugglers get their comeuppance from a black bear. In 1985, with the cocaine onboard too heavy for his small plane, the pilot dumps his cargo out above the Georgia forest. Then he and his accomplices parachute down to locate their haul. Find it they do, just as several bricks of cocaine are being consumed by a 500-lb. black bear. Moments later, the bear, displaying great strength, stamina, anger and speed, turns on them. Unwary tourists, first responders and teens become caught up in the ensuing bloody rampage. Ray Liotta and Keri Russell star while Elizabeth Banks directs from a script by Jimmy Warden. The 95-minute film’s tagline ought’a be, “Karma’s a bitch... except when it’s a bear.” (Lisa Miller)
Jesus Revolution
(In Theaters February 24)
At a time when the spontaneous Asbury revival at a Christian college in Wilmore, KY, has gone 24/7 for two weeks, this true account from the book by Greg Laurie, is perfectly timed. Here, Laurie (Joel Courtney) recounts his origins. His mother, Charlene (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), was married seven times and they moved constantly. Subsequently, in his youth, Laurie sought meaning. During the ‘60s and ‘70s he gravitated to street-preacher Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), who in turn persuaded Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer) to open his Costa Mesa, CA, church to throngs of hippies. Grammer brings a comic touch to Smith’s efforts to heed his calling over the objections of his befuddled congregation and church officials. His instincts prove right on, since it isn’t long before the “Jesus Revolution” is born and Pastor Smith needs a bigger church ... a much, much bigger church. (Lisa Miller)
Love on the Ground
(Cohen Film Collection Blu-ray)
Jane Birkin and Geraldine Chaplin star in French director Jacquette Rivette’s 1984 film. Love on the Ground opens as a small audience gathers inside a Paris apartment to watch a theater troupe rehearse a romantic sex comedy, a choreography of infidelity. Among the onlookers is a famous playwright who recognizes their performance as a rewrite of one of his early efforts. No, he’s not going to sue the company but coerces them to rehearse and perform for one-night only in his mansion—a place of locked rooms and dark corridors. They rehearse the play for several days while he refuses to give them the final act. Will this be a new take on Bluebeard’s Castle? The suspense keeps the mind games in play as Love on the Ground questions the distance between theater and voyeurism, fact and imagination and the way reality and its representation can influence each other—and our perceptions. (David Luhrssen)
'Love on the Ground' trailer
Ruth Weiss: One More Step West is the Sea
(IndiePix DVD)
The women of the Beat movement were often overlooked, overshadowed by Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac. They are finally being acknowledged by recent scholarship.
One of their number, Ruth Weiss, is also the subject of Thomas Antonic’s 2021 documentary. At the time much of it was filmed, Weiss was celebrating her 90th birthday with poetry readings at San Francisco’s Beat Museum accompanied by musicians—a percussionist slapping a hollow log and an analog synthesizer here, a free jazz duo there. Weiss came early to the concept of coupling jazz with Beat poetry after arriving in Frisco in the early ‘50s. She has stories to tell of the city when it was a haven for penniless bohemians. Weiss fled with her parents from Vienna to New York after the Nazi takeover, escaping a series of reversals along the way. “Every negative thing that happened in the long run turned out to be better,” she said.
The loosely reined film takes a long time to get the point of her interesting life; perhaps the director was emulating Weiss’ own improvisatory approach. But once the film arrives on target, Weiss is revealed as charming and fascinating, a voluminous talent who deserves to be discovered. (David Luhrssen)
