Photo © Universal Pictures
Jurassic World Dominion
Jurassic World Dominion
Gagarine
(Cohen Media Group Blu-ray)
Gagarine Towers is a housing project, a Cabrini Green-like complex on the outskirts of Paris. Like Chicago’s Cabrini, it has become dilapidated and the target for another round of urban renewal. But once the authorities pull it down, the residents will go … where? In the feature debut by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, Gagarine (2020), a teenager of African ancestry, Yuri, mobilizes residents to fix, paint and beautify their building—sometimes against the hostile apathy of neighbors. The housing project was named for the first man in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin, and the allusion provides a cosmic backdrop to Yuri’s daydreams and project of community in a multi-ethnic milieu. The mood is sometimes reminiscent of Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. (David Luhrssen)
Jurassic World Dominion
(Opens June 10)
Director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow brings his Jurassic trilogy to a close uniting the characters he created with those from the first three films. BD Wong returns as a genetic scientist at Biosyn, run by nefarious CEO Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott). To further the company’s research, Biosyn kidnaps cloned human girl Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), along with the offspring of a trained velociraptor. This prompts dinosaur wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to lead a mission to retrieve the captives. Grady, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), all converge on Biosyn’s dinosaur island to stop Dodgson from returning the planet to the beasts that Dodgson has loosed upon the world in addition to prehistoric locusts that are devastating our food crops.
The film introduces several new characters, but the standout is Giganotosaurus, the largest land predator in history. Imitating comic book films with too many battles waged by too many characters, the film’s philosophical underpinnings become lost in a horde that hurtles toward extinction. (Lisa Miller)
RoboCop
UHD Steelbook (Limited Edition)
The clever thing about director Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop (1987) was how it smuggles sharp social satire into a blood-soaked police thriller set in the near future. Of course, cinematic near futures usually look like the recent past soon enough and RoboCop is no different. However, the premise and themes, even the subtexts, remain prescient.
After mauled by cackling villains, Detroit Police Officer Murphy (Peter Weller) is transformed into a bulletproof bionic cop—a mechanized Dirty Harry who clamps down on crime. But really, RoboCop is about the privatization of police and public services, watch-your-back corporate culture (especially CEOs who deem themselves as visionaries), raging political losers demanding a “recount,” the inanity of TV news and pop culture, the implosion of nation states, the glitches that inevitably occur in complex systems and the uncertainty of humanity as AI dawns. RoboCop’s ideas are shrink-wrapped with entertaining, laugh-out-loud comedy.
The new RoboCop reissue includes the director’s and theatrical cuts, an informative booklet, commentary by Verhoeven, trailers, deleted scenes and more. (David Luhrssen)
Straight to VHS
(IndiePix DVD)
Act of Violence in a Young Journalist (1988) was released straight to video shops in Uruguay, homeland of its unknown filmmaker, Manual Lamas. Lamas was an autodidact who directed, shot, edited and composed the score for a movie that sank without notice but gradually developed a fandom among Latin American cineastes. As one admirer puts it in Straight to VHS, “everything looks wrong, but getting it so wrong is difficult.” Another compared it to punk rock—grab a camera and go!
Director Emilio Silva Torres indulges and explores his obsession with Act of Violence in Straight to VHS (2021), a documentary that shades into fiction as he ventures farther into a Borgesian labyrinth. Few records exist of Lamas and few original copies remain of his film. Extensive old school archival research (including trawling through old phone directories) augmented by the internet enabled Torres to track down cast and crew. Many of them were unwilling to talk. Act of Violence’s star-protagonist Blanca Gimenez reluctantly answered a few questions but condemned the movie and its director. Was Lamas a jerk, a narcissistic misogynist? Undaunted, Torres continued his search.
Scenes from Act of Violence included in the documentary reveal a low-budget version of giallo, the ‘70s Italian genre that reveled in sinister murderers and darker mysteries. Perhaps the engine driving the film’s meaning had less to do with Lamas than with Gimenez’s performance as a journalist investigating a serial killer? Lamas never stirred interest in anything he did after Act of Violence. Straight to VHS is a strangely compelling journey through a lost cinematic past of sex, lies and video rentals. (David Luhrssen)
Wyrm
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on Apple TV, June 10)
In a mid-90s alternate reality, the awkwardness of middle school is emphasized by a collar all students wear until the they complete their first kiss. Dubbed level one sexuality, finding someone to kiss is each student’s task. It’s simple for some, but for Wyrm (pronounced Worm), the task seems impossible. Skinny with a long, unattractive face topped by round glasses, Wyrm (Theo Taplitz) hasn’t a clue about meeting girls.
His appearance translates better to Wyrm’s twin sister Myrcella (Azure Brandi), thrilled to announce she has done her duty. Wyrm’s home life is painful in the wake of his popular older brother’s recent death and grieving parents who’ve withdrawn as active caregivers. Wyrm confide in his plastic dinosaurs. He lusts after a girl out of his league, dreading he’ll be forced to repeat eighth grade. Written by director Christopher Winterbauer, the inventive color palette combines with detailed sets to reveal much about the characters. Casting Theo Taplitz, Winterbauer found a sympathetic, credible outcast. (Lisa Miller)
