Movie Nation

The new Netflix documentary, “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing,” is another “Boeing: What Went Wrong/Downfall of Boeing” expose. But this one celebrates the whistleblowers within the airliner manufacturer who sounded the alarm and often paid a price for it as the company was managed into the ground by a string of self-confident, bottom-line-fixated business school CEOs who often knew little about this no-mistakes/shortcuts allowed “business.”

There’s a taste of “America: What Went Wrong” is doc director Rory Kennedy’s expose, a film that excoriates the Jack Welch (GE tycoon) management philosophy of maximizing profits, jack up the stock value business thinking that employees of any manufacturer, media business or whatever will recognize in a heartbeat.

Layoffs, short cuts, short term thinking, more layoffs, collect bonuses and stock options as the stock price soars and damn the consequences. “Quality” and “integrity” rarely figure into it.

Welch’s proteges, from James “Jim” McNerny to David “Dave” Calhoun, with Boeing lifer Dennis Muilenburg sandwiched in between them, ran the jewel in America’s manufacturing crown into the grown — literally — by outsourcing, cost-cutting, ramping up and taking safety shortcuts every step of the way in delivering the disastrous Dreamliner 787 and the doomed retrofit 737 Max to the world’s airlines.

Kennedy (“Last Days in Vietnam,” “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” were hers) and husband screenwriter Mark Bailey tell this story through the lives of Boeing safety inspectors and whistle blowers like John Barnett, Sam Mohawk and Merle Meyers.

We hear from crash survivors and those who survived victims of Boeing crashes such as Naoise Connelly Ryan, who became a vigorous advocate of forcing Boeing and those who ran it to face consequences.

But only one of those CEOs was fired. None of them did jail time for the hundreds of deaths they caused. And as we see Congressional showboating at its “best” when at long last Boeing leadership is called on the carpet, we accept that with a jaundiced eye. Because we’ve already seen the efforts the FAA and the Justice Dept. went to in order to spare the real villains of these tragedies anything remotely like “consequences.”

It was Welch protege McNerny who pushed Boeing to develop the Dreamliner into production at half the start-up cost of a typical new airplane designed to pick up and deliver passengers over long distances for years and decades safely. We learn of the “outsourcing” that didn’t work out as the Japanese, South Korean and other suppliers had quality control and parts compatibility problems.

We shudder at the “We don’t want unions here” new South Carolina plant heralded by then-Gov. Nikki Haley, and the videos of disgruntled, under-trained and unqualified employees who assembled many of these ticking time bombs.

And we follow the sad story of Barnett, a dogged safety inspector and lifelong company man, a blue collar hero who saw problems months and years in advance, problems the new GE-style corporate culture refused to address and the Feds failed to enforce.

It’s a widely damning documentary, as the press would often go along with the “official” verdict on this or that problem and assume it had been corrected, when it hadn’t. Meanwhile, the “capitalist tools” at Forbes and the Wall Street Journal sang the praises of the middle-aged CEOs, who were feted — to a one — by the empty-headed ditzes of TV’s CNBC (“Squawk Box” indeed) as the titans of a new gilded age.

“Freefall” doesn’t so much cover new ground as sum up a long but quick slide that many American industries experienced thanks to this stock price/cost cutting obsession. But it does give one fresh reasons to ask what plane your next flight will be using, and shopping around when you don’t like the answer.

Rating: R, profanity

Cast: John Barnett , Naiose Connelly Ryan, Dominic Gates, Sam Mohawk, Merle Meyers, with David Calhoun, Jim McNerny, Dennis Muilenberg and Jack Welch.

Credits: Directed by Rory Kennedy, scripted by Mark Bailey. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:33

It turns out, putting the two dudes who scripted “The Hangover” (and “Bad Moms”) in charge of writing and directing a midlife crisis moms at a spa farce wasn’t the smartest move ever.

“Spa Weekend” — a title as colorless as the product — is a laugh-free farce of the “Girls Trip,” “Bridesmaids,” “Joy Ride” variety. Only old and moldy.

Think of it as a passing of the torch, from the Goldie, Lily, Jane, Rita or Jada generation to new “funny women of a certain age,” and you still won’t have lowered your expectations enough.

It’s meant as a break-the-rules/cut loose farce of the “Bad Moms” school — only funnier. Or funny. It doesn’t work. Ever.

Mid-50s Leslie Mann is birthday gal Jane, one of the four tween moms, “friends since middle school,” who do a girls’ get-away at the Solstice Spa up the California coast from their busy busy lives. She’s a lawyer, no longer married and lovelorn.

“The tough one,” Coco (Michelle Buteau) is newly divorced and ignoring her anger management issues as she shares custody and mocks her husband for taking up with an older woman.

Sophie (Anna Faris, at her least amusing) is still married, trying to hang onto a job as gopher/assistant to a hapless rich brat who can’t bear to run out of Cheetos when she’s out of town.

And Mel, “the crazy one,” the one most of them agree to not invite, is played by just-turned-50 Isla Fisher at her most Aussie and over-the-top. She’s just the one to fix up Jane up with the “manotantric” yoga instructor (Peter Thurnwald) at the spa.

“She’s on the ‘older’ side, but she’s got a porno body!”

That’s the comic level of the dialogue, here. The bar is so low on the physical comedy that pretty much any “accident” or pratfall carries the success or failure of the movie with it.

Erika Heynatz doesn’t do much with the role of spa guru/owner, a role that could have been a comic highlight in more skilled hands. Kathryn Hahn wasn’t available?

Actresses who clear 50 have few choices, and it’s almost too much to hope that a “First Wives Club” or “Something’s Gotta Give” or anything with a little dignity and message to it will be there when that AARP card arrives in the mail. It’s not out of order to try a little late career “raunchy” and lewd. But if it isn’t funny, limited choices or not, you should know better.

Faris and Fisher know funny. Mann? Well, she’s married to Judd Apatow. She, more than anybody, should know better and beg for a little script doctoring.

It’d be mean to point out who is battling Mother Time the hardest, or to name who is suffering from “Sandra Bullock Face” owing to fillers. Because that’s beside the point.

Let’s put the blame for this fiasco where it lies and repeat that old Hollywood maxim that applies –and how.

“Old guys (behind the camera) can’t do comedy.”

Rating: R, pot use, suggested sex, profanity

Cast: Leslie Mann, Anna Faris, Michelle Buteau, Peter Thurnwald, Erika Heynatz and Isla Fisher

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. A Black Bear release.

Running time: 1:37

Get past the gorgeous, glamorous star power in the cast and a tone that lurches from cute to Kafkaesque and the homeless-woman-goes-to-court dramedy “Tow” will still hit you right in the ol’heartstrings.

A sentimental tale told with a bitter bite, veteran TV director Stephanie Laing’s drama asks us to believe Rose Byrne as a bleached (and re-bleached) blonde “vehicular housed” homeless woman who loses the car she’s living in and her chance to get on her feet, get out of the ’91 Camry and get down to see the daughter she gave up (Elsie Fisher) in time for Christmas.

And thanks to Byrne and a seriously impressive supporting cast, we do believe this “true story” of one broke woman’s battle against The System, in the form of a predatory Seattle towing company with no interest in ever doing the right or kind thing.

She’s tested by an oily, rich and insensitive lawyer, which Corbin Bernson could play with his eyes closed. She’s challenged by a homeless shelter and AA devotee played by Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, befriended by homeless women played by Oscar winner Ariana DeBose and singer Demi Lovato, playing a single expectant mom who sings.

Simon Rex is the tow truck company functionary with a heart, even if Cliff won’t do the right thing and just release her car and lose his lousy job over it.

And Dominic Sessa plays the crusading kid attorney who goes to battle for this woman who teeters between sobriety and despair as she sees her world — a nearly useless car (that still runs, it’s a TOYOTA) with everything she owns in it — stolen from her.

Byrne’s Amanda Ogle is determined to get a job as a veterinary tech (she passed the qualifying exam without college), determined to stay sober and determined to get back to see her cosplaying seamstress kid (Fisher) in Urah in time for Christmas.

All that goes to hell thirteen minutes into “Tow” when her Camry is stolen, turns up on a street across town and gets towed. “It’s not my fault” has been Amanda’s mantra for a while, but damned if she isn’t right this time. Kaplan Towing holds her car, with all her things, hostage for a hauling and lot storage fee that is bad and destined to get much worse.

When you’re homeless, you may be able to afford a cell phone (which you charge at a select few places that you figure out), junk food, smokes and blonde hair dye (which you renew in public restrooms where you wash up). But you sure as heck can’t afford Kaplan Towing (“The Nice People in the Towing Business”) slapping fees on your misfortune thanks to an exclusive county towing contract.

“This is NOT over,” Amanda vows, after the crying and pleading is done. She may have been a barmaid, but she knows a thing or two about researching a thing or two. She represents herself, gets a sympathetic clerk to get her into court, and convinces a judge to issue a court order.

Ah, but the predators in our business culture know how to stall, “discovery” and dodge doing the court’s doing — with the judge and “system” doing nothing to protect the little woman. Or man.

Millions will identify with this story of Amanda vs. Goliath, as this sort of predatory towing crap is everywhere. A newspaper where I worked in Orlando tore into this story, and TV stations are still at it, and damned if there’s any justice to be had short of pulling a gun on these bastards in the act.

The film’s timeliness is in every unwanted “Data Center” headline, every Trump flouting of “the rule of law,” every rich creep protected from “consequences.”

The shortcomings of “Tow” are its banal predictabilty. We know Amanda will dismiss the kid attorney working for a non-profit when they first meet. But we know they’ll come around to “needing each other.”

We can guess Spencer’s shelter proctor speech before she utters it.

“We run on rules, not excuses,” she preaches. “No porn” in this shelter. “We’re on the LORD’s WIFI” in this church.

We catch Bernson’s walking “dead lawyer” joke on his rowing machine, talking up African safaris to rich pals, or on the driving range, dodging court dates as he “waits out” his opposition.

The script may not explain how Byrne surfs the ups and downs of sobriety with no visible means of support, and no inserts of dogs at the clinic/boarding spa where she wants to work in holiday costumes (she fights this battle for a year) don’t paper over that.

But Byrne is a fiesty delight, and her scenes with comic Lea DeLaria, DeBose, Lovato, Rex and Spencer score even if the client-lawyer stuff seems wanting.

And there’s always the comfort food element to the plot. We need to be reassured that some powerless people fight a “rigged” system, no matter what the odds. Because when they do, regimes fall and the world changes.

Rating: R, substance abuse, profanity, smoking

Cast: Rose Byrne, Octavia Spencer, Dominic Sessa, Simon Rex, Elsie Fisher, Ariana DeBose, Demi Lovato and Corbin Bernsen.

Credits: Directed by Stephanie Laing, scripted by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin. A Veritical/Roadside Attractions release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:44

The summer’s biggest blockbusters opened huge, and “held” audience, week to week, weekend to weekend.

As front loaded as “Toy Story 5”(not far under $500 million), “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (way over $700, closing on $800) and “The Odyssey” (just cleared $500 million, and counting) seemed when they opened, it’s that staying power that’s paid off.

“Spider Man: Brand New Day” to dropped about 50% , weekend to weekend, and cleared $70 million on this its third weekend of release. And Christopher Nolan’s biggest hit, “The Odyssey,” is dropping only 27-30% weekend to weekend, adding $23.2 million this fifth weekend of its release.

Whatever hits the early summer provided, 2026 is proving that opening a big film late enough in July can turn August into a bonanza for cinema owners.

Two new releases about dinosaurs dueled for third place. Thee “Twilight Zone”/Spielberg-inspired “The End of Oak Street” showed some muscle, on track to clear $21 million.“Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” is a late summer animated break from the “Toy Story/Minions” parade just cleared $20 million for fourth place..

Other reviews I’ve glanced at for “Oak Street” seem to be awash in lowered expectations, with critics relishing the chance to bash “Jurassic” movies and Spielberg outings that they almost certainly raved about when they came out. Nonsense. At least we all agree that Anne Hathaway sells the reality of this wormhole in time tale, delivering a terrified face that even her “Devil Wears Prada” co-star Ms. Streep would have trouble matching.

The surprise in fifith place is a girlgroup celebration doc, “Katsye: Wild Hearts” did a middle $3.95 million, good enough for fifth place in the slack season for new releases.

“Six: The Musical Live” is a bit of filmed theater that managed sixth with a $3 million take.

The Reagan/Gorbachev nuclear-de-escalation drama “The Brink of War” from Angel Studios, starring Jeff Daniels and Jared Harris, is pulling in $2.68 million or so from aged Reagan fans. That’s good enough to seat it in a Dog Days of August top ten (seventh). I ducked into a showing of it to see if I wanted to sit through the entire thing and thought “Meh.” Reviews have been mixed to poor on that one.

“Toy Story 5” $2.3 million) spent most of the summer in the top five and is still doing eighth place business.

“One Night Only” earns another week in the top ten with a $2 million tally, good enough for ninth placeo back in session.

And “Vishwanath & Sons,” a dramedy import from the subcontinent, cracked the top ten with a $1.6 million opening weekend. As loyal as that audience is, if I was an urban theater owner, I’d want an Indian title every week, a new anime every month and maybe two horror titles a month for good measure.

“Moana” and “Super Troopers 3,” “The Invite,” “Hadestown” and “Obsession” are driftig out of the top ten and into the summer sunset.