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Dune: Part Two
Amelia’s Children
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on VOD, March 1)
After New Yorker Edward (Carloto Cotta) tests his DNA, he learns of his identical twin brother (Carloto Cotta, again) and mother, living in Portugal. With girlfriend Riley (Brigette Lundy-Paine) by his side, Edward arrives to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal. While the circumstances of his separation from the family remain mysterious, Edward and Riley soon learn that there’s much that is unusual about his mother Amelia (portrayed by both Anabela Moreira and Alba Baptista) and her relationship to his brother. Once majestic, the family’s dilapidated villa provides a share of atmospheric creaks and creeps. Directed and written by Gabriel Abrantes who studied in New York and Paris, and now lives in Lisbon, this horror relies on jump cuts to generate many of its scares, the bulk of which are the product of a pathological mother-son relationship. (Lisa Miller)
Dune: Part Two
(In Theaters March 1)
Just as Peter Jackson re-imagined The Lord of the Ring series, director Denis Villeneuve delivers an impassioned, dynamic version of Frank Herbert’s Dune. The director split Herbert’s large tome into two parts. Here, Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, the prophesied Messiah intent upon helping the Fremen to regain control of their desert planet Arrakis. Known as Dune, Arrakis is ruled by the brutal Harkonnen and their massive machines used to harvest an invaluable spice. Rebecca Ferguson reprises her role as Lady Jessica, Paul’s Bene Gesserit mother, a witch bred and trained from birth, who is responsible for Paul’s ability to see possible futures. Zendaya appears as Chani, a young Fremen warrior and Paul’s love interest. The film’s sweeping, poetic cinematography conveys the desert’s quiet beauty, but works equally well during battle sequences or to depict Dune’s enormous, predatory sandworms. Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and Stellan Skarsgard join the cast playing major roles while Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem return as characters from Part One. Standing at an astounding 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, plans are underway for a third and final installment based upon Herbert’s follow up novel, Dune: Messiah. (Lisa Miller)
Joan Baez: I Am a Noise
(Magnolia Home Entertainment DVD)
At age 79, Joan Baez is about to embark on what may be her farewell tour as the documentary opens. She’s working in her California home with a voice coach, stretching those vocal muscles back into shape. A painting of Bob Dylan occupies a prominent place on the wall.
Composed of archival and contemporary footage with Baez’s narration as the continuity, I Am a Noise revisits a remarkable life. “We remember what we want to remember,” she admits. “We remember what saves us a lot of pain.” Fame came fast for Baez, and she was unprepared. She felt “guilty” about her stardom and suffered the envy of her sister-singer Mimi Farina, forever pegged as “Joan Baez’s sister” and overshadowed as a result. Of Dylan, “we changed each other’s lives,” she says, recalling her first glimpse of this “tattered little shamble of a human being … I was transfixed.”
The product of Quaker activist parents, Baez became a prominent voice for the civil rights struggle. Black and white footage shows that she placed herself near harm’s way among protesters in the South, facing the possibility of clubs and gas. (David Luhrssen)
