Movie Nation

One of the hallmarks of a classic film is the way it impacted the cinema of its day and all the movies on its subject that followed.

“Citizen Kane” changed the movies. “Stagecoach” became the benchmark of Westerns. And marriage, generally depicted in broad strokes — either sunny or dark — became something a lot more complicated to consider after the British “kitchen sink realism” of “A Kind of Loving” in 1962.

Based on a realistic novel by Stan Barstow, perhaps only a closted gay filmmaker in a country where homosexuality was still illegal, and a Jew in a culture still noted for its antisemitism, could have treated this subject with the sort of cynical, jaded beauty that the great John Schlesinger brought to it.

Schlesinger’s debut feature — he’d go on to make “Darling,” “Midnight Cowboy” and much later “Pacific Heights,” where I had the pleasure of interviewing him — was photographed by Denys Coop. Coop’s work on “Look Back in Anger,” “This Sporting Life,” and Schlesinger’s “A Kind of Living” and “Billy Liar” helped define an era in British film.

They moved domestic drama out of London, off of soundstages and into the stark, industrial north. Manchester and environs were the settings for its street and park life, with Fylde and Blackpool serving as the very place a working class bloke with “a white collar job” would take his bride on a honeymoon — the overcast and rocky British version of Atlantic City.

Alan Bates, very early in his run as one of the great leading men of his day, stars as Vic Brown, that “white collar” draftsman with a good job and “security” at a large, reputable firm.

But “security” isn’t on his mind, even on his beloved older sister’s (Pat Keen) wedding day. This opening scene lets us see a rowhouse (“semi-detached”) working class neighborhood dominated by its ancient church. But while the entrance of that church is where everybody is posed for wedding day photos, Schlesinger makes of point of letting all that business serve as the backdrop for the opening credits.

None of this “holy matrimony” and “sanctity of marriage” sentimentality will do. The world had already moved on from that. Now it was time for the movies to do the same.

Vic is ambitious enough to take his job seriously, outgoing enough to be “one of the lads” up for “pub crawling” after “the (soccer) match,” quick to share the latest nudie mag from France among the lot.

Vic has noticed the pretty and proper Ingrid (newcomer June Ritchie) around the office. He pines for her, stalks her to ride the same bus, and eventually fakes a “left my money at the office” excuse to get her to lend him ticket change just to start a conversation.

Among the piggish louts in his all-male department, she’s got a nickname — “the praying mantis.” Their distinction between “tarts” and “when it comes to marrying a bird, you want something else” has rubbed off on Vic. Ingrid, younger but from a more management class family, might be the one for him.

“A Kind of Loving” sets in motion what we’d now see as a most conventional screen “romance.” She’s falling in love. He might be, but his libido takes precedence. The on-and-off nature of the affair — movie dates, necking in the park, followed by an early ’60s version of “ghosting” — patiently plays out for the entire middle hour of the movie.

And then, also daring for its time, she lets him know that she’s “late.” Their affair becomes a marriage, one that might be dictated by tradition, doing “the honorable thing” and family pressure, which could also be their undoing.

Bates, a beautiful and magnificently “real” screen presence in his heyday, lets us see the confusion and calculations in Vic, handsome but too naive to be a playboy or rake, too upstanding to not do the right thing, too fragile to endure the abuse of his not-working-class mother-in-law (Thora Bird, infuriating).

She is “enough to make a bloody vicar swear,” she is. But will Ingrid see that? Will his own family?

“A Kind of Loving” was the first British film to show a flash of skin, “daring” in its “shut your cakehole” and “bloody” this and that (mild) profanity and as frank as any English speaking movie of its day about sex. One is always “careful,” but Vic chickens out and buys booze at the chemists (pharmacy) when our lad went in to buy condoms, young lovers face the dilemma of “We mustn’t” when their hormones are insisting “We must.”

Easy “divorce” is introduced, and seen for the cliche it was to become. An old mate of Vic’s admits he’s had one, and shows off the 1935 MG-PA he bought to celebrate.

“A Kind of Loving” is the sort of revolutionary classic that reminds us how hard it is to see the revolution, as it happened, from a distance. Watch the chaste romances of the mid-50s, and then catch “The Entertainer,” “The Apartment” or “This Sporting Life” and this film. A generational sea change was happening, and the plays and movies that came along were merely following it and documenting the New Normal.

The perilous war years and the lean decade and a half that followed were turning into “The Swinging Sixties,” where marriage and “love” itself were being redefined by simply taking off the rose colored glasses and seeing romance and marriage for “A Kind of Loving.”

And in this Bates, Schlesinger and Ritchie masterpiece, scripted by Schlesinger collaborators Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse and lit and photographed by Denys Cooper, we have a gorgeous artifact of that — a patient, carefully-observed and sensitively- portrayed snapshot of a generation, culture and society shedding one value system and taking a hard look at a new one.

Rating: TV-PG, nudity, adult themes

Cast: Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Bert Palmer and Thora Bird

Credits: Directed by John Schlesinger, scripted by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse, based on a novel by Stan Barstow. An Anglo-Amalgamated Film now streaming on Tubi, et al.

Running time: 1:53

This comic thriller about a gullible little old lady who gets mixed up in things way beyond her experience of the world co-stars Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg and Fred Hechinger and opens June 21.

It is one of the hoariest conventions in screen thrillers. Round up a bunch of people, some of them armed and dangerous. Park them in a roadside diner, and see what happens.

The classic “The Petrified Forest,” based on a hit Robert Sherwood play of the ’30s, did it first and best. But Tarantino paid homage to that set up in “Pulp Fiction,” and there are shades of it in “A History of Violence” and legions of stand-off, hostage situation and crooks-on-the-lam thrillers.

“The Last Stop in Yuma County” is a darkly funny variation on a well-worn plot and theme, cleverly-cast and sufficiently-twisty to be worth your trouble.

It’s the mid-70s, and a Joshua Tree region “last gas for 100 miles” filling station is gassed out. That’s what parks the traveling knife salesman (Jim Cummings) in that no-AC diner next door. Charlotte, the sheriff’s wife (Jocelin Donahue) is the waitress, cook (apparently) and rhubarb pie-pusher in charge.

They’re both a little leery of two toughs (Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan) who roll up in a green Ford Pinto. Say, wasn’t that the color of the car used in a bank robbery in Tuscon or somewheres?

They can’t warn the sheriff (Michael Abbott, Jr.) or his green deputy (Connor Paolo). At least others show up in the diner — an elderly couple (Robin Bartlett, Gene Jones), the 20ish lovers who figure out whose Pinto that is and what it has in it (Sierra McCormick and Ryan Masson), and the big guy who runs the empty gas station (Faizon Love).

It takes a while for everybody to get on the same page about what’s going down. And when they do, you can be sure that they and anybody else who rolls in, looking for gas or rhubarb pie, will be armed in one fashion or another.

The villains go from “Ain’t nobody gonna recognize us here” to “Drop it!” “No YOU drop it!” in a flash. And that’s where things turn interesting.

Writer-director Francis Galluppi’s feature debut is self-consciously, self-mockingly self-referential in where he borrows ideas, scenes and set ups. A character quotes “Badlands.” Roy Orbison is on the jukebox. Everybody is both a “type” and a seriously unpredictable “type.” And everybody in the cast gets just enough scenes to make an impression, and does.

The violence is visceral but realistic. About the only “over the top” things about the picture are the myriad misdirections that kick in just as things turn interesting, and just afterward. Didn’t see THAT coming. Not really.

It’s not the most ambitious, original thriller or dazzling writing-directing debut. But Galluppi makes his covenant with the genre and the audience, and fulfills his obligations in a solid and satisfying roadside diner drama with moments of suspense, blasts of violence and enough dark dry laughs to remind us it’s supposed to be fun.

Rating: R, violence, profanity

Cast: Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake, Nicholas Logan, Michael Abbott Jr., Robin Bartlett, Sierra McCormick, Gene Jones, Connor Paolo, Ryan Masson and Faizon Love.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Francis Galluppi. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:30

“Innocuous, predictable and well-cast” is about all the praise “Mother of the Bride” warrants, unless you consider another movie featuring the lovely scenery of Phuket, Thailand a deal-maker.

Looking for laughs in this Brooke Shields comedy is like panning for gold on a sunny beach in paradise — not the best use of your time or the location.

Shields stars as a driven, highly-strung single-mom geneticist whose daughter (“School of Rock” alumna Miranda Cosgrove) is terrified of telling her she’s just gotten engaged. Why? Mom’s not that bad.

She’s pretty cool about “the fact that you’re marrying a guy with initials” — RJ (Sean Teale) — “and not a name.” The wedding’s in Thailand because of daughter Emma’s new “brand ambaddasor” gig for a resort? In a month? OK. Fine. Whatever.

But about the father of the groom…

Benjamin Bratt classes up the joint as that dad, a fellow Mom had a long romance with back at Stanford. No problem, once we’ve gotten the “If RJ is my half-brother, the wedding’s off” joke out of the way. Sure, it’ll be “awkward.” But “awkward funny,” right?

Nope. Pratfalls, the “pickle ball incident,” Mom and Dad thrown together with romantic possibilities, a younger doctor nicknamed “sexy Doogie Howser” (Chad Michael Murray) might spice things up, but doesn’t. Aunt of the bride Janice (Rachael Harris) should sass things up, but doesn’t. The pushy corporate “brand” protecting wedding planner (Tasneem Roc) isn’t as hateable as is necessary. And so on.

Shields’ sitcom-polished mugging and reaction shots can’t wring giggles out of a tepid screenplay. And director Mark Waters is a long way from his “Mean Girls” glory and “Bad Santa 2” “edge.”

So there it is, a blase wedding with little romance and almost no laughs takes place in Thailand. I guess you had to be there — on set, a working vacation — to get anything out of it.

Rating: TV-14

Cast: Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Rachael Harris and Sean Teale.

Credits: Directed by Mark Waters, scripted by Robin Bernheim. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:30

The phrase “spectacularly pointless” hangs over the tenth “Planet of the Apes” movie, a stand-alone sequel to “War for the Planet of the Apes,” which came out seven years ago.

Granted, I was thinking “umpteenth” in terms of the actual number of these films just as it began. And “What is the point of that?” cropped into my head watching the trailer to “Alien: Romulus” preceding the latest 20th Century Studios apes outing. That question lingered all the way through this 143 minute meander through CGI.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” features a lesser known cast, unfamiliar voices and motion-captured actors acting characters in a generic “hero’s journey” with a vague if not downright inane destination. Just figuring out who is whom and what their purpose in the saga is can be a struggle. Thankfully, the wearily predictable story beats solve those problems, if not the ones presented by “Who should we root for?” and “Why should we care?”

Visual, verbal and character references to earlier “Apes” films as well as “Water World” and assorted other sci-fi spectacles abound.

But little of it makes a lick of sense in a film that might be akin to the “last” “Apes” movie of the first 1970s run of the franchise, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” — something of a placeholder film for any “Apes” ideas — films or series — to follow, should anybody believe that’s a good idea.

“Some generations” have passed since the death of the viral ape who led the planet’s simian takeover, Caesar. Apes have bent their society towards hunter-gatherers, with horses, tools, multi-story huts, and for the Eagle Clan, birds they’ve somehow trained in falconry.

Their separation from the human race seems complete, as mankind is almost extinct. But that doesn’t mean that conflict has ended. The strong prey on the weak, which is how the Eagle Clan village is sacked and most of its inhabitants taken hostage by the monkey minions of King Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand).

Son of a falconer Noa (Owen Teague of the “It” movies) promises his dying dad that he will find the tribe and “bring them home.”

Encounters with a wayward human (Freya Allen of TV’s “The Witcher”) may have led the raiders to their village. As Noa tracks the captors, she tracks him. And along the way, he meets the sage orangutan Raka (Peter Macon, the standout in the cast), a member of the ancient Order of Caesar, scholars, worshipers of Caesar doing “the work” of maintaining their oral history until they can figure out how this “storing” knowledge in these things called “books” works.

Raka laments the loss of “herds” of humans, their fate as mute “scavengers” who once walked with apes as equals (there’s a lot of history he wouldn’t know), and preaches “compassion” when the starving, silent but still-dressed human woman falls in with them.

“We will name her ‘Nova.’ We name them all ‘Nova.’ I know not why.”

That’s the lone bit of humor in VFX-guy turned directorWes Ball’s movie (he did some “Maze Runner” pics). His film takes pains — too many pains — to reintroduce us and immerse us in Apeworld, where ruined high-rises are covered in foiliage and the one recognizable landwork is that space age LAX “theme building,” also covered in greenery.

The landscapes, forest and CGI apes are next level realistic, and cost so much to get just right that we get scene after scene slowly setting up the rituals of this “new” society before the movie starts as that society is burned and kidnapped out of existence.

The “kingdom” that Proximus has founded from all these slaves is seaside, in a graveyard for ships and close to something the humans buried that he might might useful for world conquest.

The film’s “placeholder” label doesn’t just refer to the status quo ante that the story attempts to circle back to. Conflicts are arbitrary, and the brawls are perfunctory, “action beats” as defined in third year screenwriting classes. This Nova isn’t mute. And when she meets a human aide to Proximus (William H. Macy needed the money), they have a lot to talk about.

But the overarching gripe here is that initial one I brought up. What is the point? Pierre Boulle’s 1960s source novel touched on race and colonialism in a metaphorical sense. More recent films has grasped ecology and planetary degradation as driving themes behind humanity’s careless collapse and the rise of the apes and “Caesar’s Law.” Guns are introduced, but not politicized. Conflict is imposed, but the non-violence one half expects to see advocated is given a thought and abandoned.

There’s little hint of anything “deep” or “thoughtful” here. This is a dystopia whose origins we might remember, but whose teachable moments and “hope for a better tomorrow” elements are abandoned as we watch the apes climb for eagle eggs, and for their liberty, and chase and fight the enormous gorillas for some unclear notion of “freedom.”

It’s lovely to look at. But that leaden, endless time-suck of an opening act is a fatal flaw that “Kingdom” never overcomes. And two and a half hours is a helluva long time to take to get to a point, not that they ever do.

Rating: PG-13, violence

Cast: The voices of Owen Teague, Kevin Durand, Lydia Peckham, Peter Macon, Travis Jefferey, with Freya Allen and William H. Macy

Credits: Directed by Wes Ball, scripted by Josh Freedman. A 20th Century release.

Running time: 2:23

An AMC multiplex in Durham, N.C., close enough to shout “Dook SUX” to the children of entitlement  who attend.

I’ve been going to these movies based on the Pierre Boulle parable since Roddy McDowell and Jim Hunter mastered the prosthetic simian suits and masks. I think the first one I attended was the last of the first cycle. 

Half a century later, we’re on the third version of the franchise, the politics are potentially more pointed and the CGI impressive if not nearly as humanoid as it was back when it was all about the masks.

Nearly sold out show on this “preview” of the “preview” night.  Pricey.

I understand why “Fall Guy” and every horror movie this year have underperformed. Ticket prices are too high save for the exceptional “epics” and franchises.

Here we go, “You damned dirty apes.”

Sienna Miller, Danny Huston, Giovani Ribisi, Sam Worthington, Luke Wilson, Michael Rooker, JEna Malone, Abbey Lee, Isabelle Furhman, Owen Crow She, Will Patton and Tatanka Means join Costner in his take on “How the West was Won.”

Looks a tad retrograde, as did the teaser trailer. But it’s big and sweeping.

June 28, Aug 16, the film will be released in two parts.

This one’s all country music and “try that in a small town” vs. “city girl” and “yer fancy tech” “You don’t face your fears, you ride’em” swagger.

Yeah, they rednecked up and dumbed “Twister” down for “Twisters.” Oklahoma “never had a chance.”

Glen Powell, fresh off “Anyone But You,” heads a lesser known cast (Katy O’Brian, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Kiernan Shipka, Maura Tierney) in this July release.

Oh yeah. That’s the ticket.

Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) plays a hustler whose sister goes missing, even though she’d be the last one “to miss a pow-wow.”

The Feds and the State keep kicking the case back and forth. Shea Whigham plays the creepy father who raised them.

A niece’s future is at stake. Nothing for it but to kidnap that niece and take her to a pow-wow.

“Fancy Dance” opens theatrically June 21, and moves to Apple TV+ a week later.