Michael Fox has written about film for dozens of publications since 1987. He is a founding member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.
By Michael Fox
‘Ask E. Jean’ Reframes a Tabloid Figure in Feminist History
11 of the Best Movies and Film Festivals to See This Summer
BAMPFA Spotlights Lucrecia Martel’s Parables of Middle-Class Desperation
Heartfelt Epic ‘Palestine ’36’ Revisits Arab Blows Against the British Empire
For Valentine’s, a Thai Fantasy About a Ghost in a (Vacuum) Machine
Entrancing ‘Testament of Ann Lee’ Relays the Shakers’ Saga in Song and Dance
Manic ‘Marty Supreme’ Smashes the American Dream
The Best Movie Moments of 2025
‘Train Dreams’ Is a Mesmerizing Portrayal of a Working Man’s Life
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"content": "\u003cp>The name E. Jean Carroll may ring a faint bell, a snowflake in the blizzard of offensive behavior that has comprised the “news” in the last decade. The protagonist and focus of the involving documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.askejeanfilm.com/\">Ask E. Jean\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, however, is neither an offender nor a snowflake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Carroll is the New York journalist and longtime \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> advice columnist who, inspired by the women who spoke up during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/metoo\">#MeToo movement\u003c/a>, accused Donald Trump in 2019 of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store more than 20 years earlier. Carroll won a civil suit and, after Trump called her a liar on CNN and on social media, sued him for defamation and prevailed a second time, with the jury awarding damages of $83.3 million.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> devotes ample time to the trials, but don’t be distracted by their innate political and sensationalist allure. America’s most popular 34-time felon is a minor figure in Carroll’s saga.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ivy Meeropol (\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbomax.com/movies/bully-coward-victim-the-story-of-roy-cohn/ed29cd0a-819e-4af9-aa88-c2b7dd71e23a\">Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn\u003c/a>\u003c/em>), greatly assisted by Ferne Pearlstein, another veteran documentary maker credited here as editor and story producer, has fashioned a later-in-life coming-of-age story that simultaneously plays as a pop-culture social history of feminism. \u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> fits nicely on the shelf with the recent post-sexual revolution docs \u003cem>The Disappearance of Shere Hite\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953248/topless-at-the-condor-movie-review-carol-doda-documentary-north-beach-history\">Carol Doda Topless at the Condor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, alongside the DVD box set of \u003cem>Sex and the City\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg\" alt=\"white woman with blonde bob leans forward in magazine image\" class=\"wp-image-13991090\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1200x675.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A young E. Jean Carroll. (Roxie Theater)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A Midwestern girl who parlayed the personality and panache that earned her Miss Cheerleader USA of 1964, Carroll moved to New York some years later, after she started writing for major magazines and her first marriage ended. Amusingly, her assignments included a camping trip with urban icon Fran Lebowitz.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carroll had the confidence and talent not only to assert her distinctive voice in print, but to insert herself in her stories. Ambitious and driven, she was in prime position to witness and applaud the generation of women breaking into the corporate ranks in the ’80s and competing with men. Carroll became the trusted confidant for many of them in the 1990s, with her “Ask E. Jean” sex-and-advice column in \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> and a short-lived cable TV call-in show with the same name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The documentary uses clips from the television show as a throughline, and throwback, in a kind of call-and-response to the contemporary court proceedings. Carroll’s screen persona is flirty, dishy and inviting, like the big-city older sister you wished you had. But her empathy for her guests’ and callers’ plights is limited — she’s adamant that they stop wasting time, pursue their goals and get out of unhelpful relationships.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s standard modern romance fare, but not all of Carroll’s female-empowerment gospel has aged well. There’s a remarkable clip of Carroll on Geraldo Rivera’s show discussing Anita Hill and Paula Jones, who had accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and President Bill Clinton, respectively, of sexual harassment. Carroll lambastes the women for being “wimps,” for not standing up for themselves and simply telling the men to shut up and scram.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These vintage clips erase some of Carroll’s halo accrued from bravely speaking the truth about a powerful man (who was re-elected President of the United States, can you believe) and wrench the film from the clutches of hagiography. More importantly, they convey the evolution of Carroll’s thinking about the ways our society treats women.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the height of her success, Carroll embodied the old Virginia Slims slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” She was, after all, the first female contributing editor of \u003cem>Playboy\u003c/em>. If a woman had the ability, she could succeed on her own terms. The playing field was level, and nothing was stopping her. Equality between the sexes had been achieved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1.jpeg\" alt=\"older white woman in suit jacket and string tie\" class=\"wp-image-13991089\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-1200x675.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A still from ‘Ask E. Jean.’ (Roxie Theater)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The day Trump assaulted Carroll in 1996, she was a savvy woman who thought she knew it all, and was victimized anyway. And she blamed herself, like many people who’ve been sexually assaulted. As Carroll relates in a recorded deposition, she changed afterward. (\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> notes that most sexually assaulted women don’t come forward because they are “rewarded” with intrusive, insulting interrogations, a miniscule conviction rate for rape, and hate mail.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> concludes by holding up Carroll as a heroine, and a role model. That’s a strategy for delivering a satisfying movie experience and generating good word of mouth, but I think most viewers will see past it. Particularly since the issues raised by the film are independent from, and not dependent on, whether you like or agree with or empathize with its protagonist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em>’s contribution is that it naturally provokes the viewer into surfacing and revisiting their own experiences — including the forgotten and suppressed ones — and attitudes. From a big-picture standpoint, the film invites a deep discussion of the historical and current benefits of feminism. And, just maybe, the costs of our society’s limitations on women.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003chr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/ask-e-jean/\">Ask E. Jean\u003c/a>’ screens June 26–29, 2026 at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco). Filmmaker Ivy Meeropol appears in person after the Saturday, June 27 show.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Ivy Meeropol (\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbomax.com/movies/bully-coward-victim-the-story-of-roy-cohn/ed29cd0a-819e-4af9-aa88-c2b7dd71e23a\">Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn\u003c/a>\u003c/em>), greatly assisted by Ferne Pearlstein, another veteran documentary maker credited here as editor and story producer, has fashioned a later-in-life coming-of-age story that simultaneously plays as a pop-culture social history of feminism. \u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> fits nicely on the shelf with the recent post-sexual revolution docs \u003cem>The Disappearance of Shere Hite\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953248/topless-at-the-condor-movie-review-carol-doda-documentary-north-beach-history\">Carol Doda Topless at the Condor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, alongside the DVD box set of \u003cem>Sex and the City\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg\" alt=\"white woman with blonde bob leans forward in magazine image\" class=\"wp-image-13991090\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1200x675.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A young E. Jean Carroll.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A Midwestern girl who parlayed the personality and panache that earned her Miss Cheerleader USA of 1964, Carroll moved to New York some years later, after she started writing for major magazines and her first marriage ended. Amusingly, her assignments included a camping trip with urban icon Fran Lebowitz.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A Midwestern girl who parlayed the personality and panache that earned her Miss Cheerleader USA of 1964, Carroll moved to New York some years later, after she started writing for major magazines and her first marriage ended. Amusingly, her assignments included a camping trip with urban icon Fran Lebowitz.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Carroll had the confidence and talent not only to assert her distinctive voice in print, but to insert herself in her stories. Ambitious and driven, she was in prime position to witness and applaud the generation of women breaking into the corporate ranks in the ’80s and competing with men. Carroll became the trusted confidant for many of them in the 1990s, with her “Ask E. Jean” sex-and-advice column in \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> and a short-lived cable TV call-in show with the same name.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Carroll had the confidence and talent not only to assert her distinctive voice in print, but to insert herself in her stories. Ambitious and driven, she was in prime position to witness and applaud the generation of women breaking into the corporate ranks in the ’80s and competing with men. Carroll became the trusted confidant for many of them in the 1990s, with her “Ask E. Jean” sex-and-advice column in \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> and a short-lived cable TV call-in show with the same name.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The documentary uses clips from the television show as a throughline, and throwback, in a kind of call-and-response to the contemporary court proceedings. Carroll’s screen persona is flirty, dishy and inviting, like the big-city older sister you wished you had. But her empathy for her guests’ and callers’ plights is limited — she’s adamant that they stop wasting time, pursue their goals and get out of unhelpful relationships.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The documentary uses clips from the television show as a throughline, and throwback, in a kind of call-and-response to the contemporary court proceedings. Carroll’s screen persona is flirty, dishy and inviting, like the big-city older sister you wished you had. But her empathy for her guests’ and callers’ plights is limited — she’s adamant that they stop wasting time, pursue their goals and get out of unhelpful relationships.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s standard modern romance fare, but not all of Carroll’s female-empowerment gospel has aged well. There’s a remarkable clip of Carroll on Geraldo Rivera’s show discussing Anita Hill and Paula Jones, who had accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and President Bill Clinton, respectively, of sexual harassment. Carroll lambastes the women for being “wimps,” for not standing up for themselves and simply telling the men to shut up and scram.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s standard modern romance fare, but not all of Carroll’s female-empowerment gospel has aged well. There’s a remarkable clip of Carroll on Geraldo Rivera’s show discussing Anita Hill and Paula Jones, who had accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and President Bill Clinton, respectively, of sexual harassment. Carroll lambastes the women for being “wimps,” for not standing up for themselves and simply telling the men to shut up and scram.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These vintage clips erase some of Carroll’s halo accrued from bravely speaking the truth about a powerful man (who was re-elected President of the United States, can you believe) and wrench the film from the clutches of hagiography. More importantly, they convey the evolution of Carroll’s thinking about the ways our society treats women.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These vintage clips erase some of Carroll’s halo accrued from bravely speaking the truth about a powerful man (who was re-elected President of the United States, can you believe) and wrench the film from the clutches of hagiography. More importantly, they convey the evolution of Carroll’s thinking about the ways our society treats women.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At the height of her success, Carroll embodied the old Virginia Slims slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” She was, after all, the first female contributing editor of \u003cem>Playboy\u003c/em>. If a woman had the ability, she could succeed on her own terms. The playing field was level, and nothing was stopping her. Equality between the sexes had been achieved.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At the height of her success, Carroll embodied the old Virginia Slims slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” She was, after all, the first female contributing editor of \u003cem>Playboy\u003c/em>. If a woman had the ability, she could succeed on her own terms. The playing field was level, and nothing was stopping her. Equality between the sexes had been achieved.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The day Trump assaulted Carroll in 1996, she was a savvy woman who thought she knew it all, and was victimized anyway. And she blamed herself, like many people who’ve been sexually assaulted. As Carroll relates in a recorded deposition, she changed afterward. (\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> notes that most sexually assaulted women don’t come forward because they are “rewarded” with intrusive, insulting interrogations, a miniscule conviction rate for rape, and hate mail.)\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The day Trump assaulted Carroll in 1996, she was a savvy woman who thought she knew it all, and was victimized anyway. And she blamed herself, like many people who’ve been sexually assaulted. As Carroll relates in a recorded deposition, she changed afterward. (\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> notes that most sexually assaulted women don’t come forward because they are “rewarded” with intrusive, insulting interrogations, a miniscule conviction rate for rape, and hate mail.)\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> concludes by holding up Carroll as a heroine, and a role model. That’s a strategy for delivering a satisfying movie experience and generating good word of mouth, but I think most viewers will see past it. Particularly since the issues raised by the film are independent from, and not dependent on, whether you like or agree with or empathize with its protagonist.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> concludes by holding up Carroll as a heroine, and a role model. That’s a strategy for delivering a satisfying movie experience and generating good word of mouth, but I think most viewers will see past it. Particularly since the issues raised by the film are independent from, and not dependent on, whether you like or agree with or empathize with its protagonist.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em>’s contribution is that it naturally provokes the viewer into surfacing and revisiting their own experiences — including the forgotten and suppressed ones — and attitudes. From a big-picture standpoint, the film invites a deep discussion of the historical and current benefits of feminism. And, just maybe, the costs of our society’s limitations on women.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em>’s contribution is that it naturally provokes the viewer into surfacing and revisiting their own experiences — including the forgotten and suppressed ones — and attitudes. From a big-picture standpoint, the film invites a deep discussion of the historical and current benefits of feminism. And, just maybe, the costs of our society’s limitations on women.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/ask-e-jean/\">Ask E. Jean\u003c/a>’ screens June 26–29, 2026 at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco). Filmmaker Ivy Meeropol appears in person after the Saturday, June 27 show.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Ivy Meeropol’s documentary tells the story of the journalist who won two cases against Donald Trump.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The name E. Jean Carroll may ring a faint bell, a snowflake in the blizzard of offensive behavior that has comprised the “news” in the last decade. The protagonist and focus of the involving documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.askejeanfilm.com/\">Ask E. Jean\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, however, is neither an offender nor a snowflake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Carroll is the New York journalist and longtime \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> advice columnist who, inspired by the women who spoke up during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/metoo\">#MeToo movement\u003c/a>, accused Donald Trump in 2019 of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store more than 20 years earlier. Carroll won a civil suit and, after Trump called her a liar on CNN and on social media, sued him for defamation and prevailed a second time, with the jury awarding damages of $83.3 million.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> devotes ample time to the trials, but don’t be distracted by their innate political and sensationalist allure. America’s most popular 34-time felon is a minor figure in Carroll’s saga.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ivy Meeropol (\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbomax.com/movies/bully-coward-victim-the-story-of-roy-cohn/ed29cd0a-819e-4af9-aa88-c2b7dd71e23a\">Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn\u003c/a>\u003c/em>), greatly assisted by Ferne Pearlstein, another veteran documentary maker credited here as editor and story producer, has fashioned a later-in-life coming-of-age story that simultaneously plays as a pop-culture social history of feminism. \u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> fits nicely on the shelf with the recent post-sexual revolution docs \u003cem>The Disappearance of Shere Hite\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953248/topless-at-the-condor-movie-review-carol-doda-documentary-north-beach-history\">Carol Doda Topless at the Condor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, alongside the DVD box set of \u003cem>Sex and the City\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg\" alt=\"white woman with blonde bob leans forward in magazine image\" class=\"wp-image-13991090\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-2-1200x675.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A young E. Jean Carroll. (Roxie Theater)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A Midwestern girl who parlayed the personality and panache that earned her Miss Cheerleader USA of 1964, Carroll moved to New York some years later, after she started writing for major magazines and her first marriage ended. Amusingly, her assignments included a camping trip with urban icon Fran Lebowitz.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carroll had the confidence and talent not only to assert her distinctive voice in print, but to insert herself in her stories. Ambitious and driven, she was in prime position to witness and applaud the generation of women breaking into the corporate ranks in the ’80s and competing with men. Carroll became the trusted confidant for many of them in the 1990s, with her “Ask E. Jean” sex-and-advice column in \u003cem>Elle\u003c/em> and a short-lived cable TV call-in show with the same name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The documentary uses clips from the television show as a throughline, and throwback, in a kind of call-and-response to the contemporary court proceedings. Carroll’s screen persona is flirty, dishy and inviting, like the big-city older sister you wished you had. But her empathy for her guests’ and callers’ plights is limited — she’s adamant that they stop wasting time, pursue their goals and get out of unhelpful relationships.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s standard modern romance fare, but not all of Carroll’s female-empowerment gospel has aged well. There’s a remarkable clip of Carroll on Geraldo Rivera’s show discussing Anita Hill and Paula Jones, who had accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and President Bill Clinton, respectively, of sexual harassment. Carroll lambastes the women for being “wimps,” for not standing up for themselves and simply telling the men to shut up and scram.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These vintage clips erase some of Carroll’s halo accrued from bravely speaking the truth about a powerful man (who was re-elected President of the United States, can you believe) and wrench the film from the clutches of hagiography. More importantly, they convey the evolution of Carroll’s thinking about the ways our society treats women.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the height of her success, Carroll embodied the old Virginia Slims slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” She was, after all, the first female contributing editor of \u003cem>Playboy\u003c/em>. If a woman had the ability, she could succeed on her own terms. The playing field was level, and nothing was stopping her. Equality between the sexes had been achieved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1.jpeg\" alt=\"older white woman in suit jacket and string tie\" class=\"wp-image-13991089\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Ask-E.-Jean-1-1200x675.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A still from ‘Ask E. Jean.’ (Roxie Theater)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The day Trump assaulted Carroll in 1996, she was a savvy woman who thought she knew it all, and was victimized anyway. And she blamed herself, like many people who’ve been sexually assaulted. As Carroll relates in a recorded deposition, she changed afterward. (\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> notes that most sexually assaulted women don’t come forward because they are “rewarded” with intrusive, insulting interrogations, a miniscule conviction rate for rape, and hate mail.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em> concludes by holding up Carroll as a heroine, and a role model. That’s a strategy for delivering a satisfying movie experience and generating good word of mouth, but I think most viewers will see past it. Particularly since the issues raised by the film are independent from, and not dependent on, whether you like or agree with or empathize with its protagonist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ask E. Jean\u003c/em>’s contribution is that it naturally provokes the viewer into surfacing and revisiting their own experiences — including the forgotten and suppressed ones — and attitudes. From a big-picture standpoint, the film invites a deep discussion of the historical and current benefits of feminism. And, just maybe, the costs of our society’s limitations on women.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003chr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/ask-e-jean/\">Ask E. Jean\u003c/a>’ screens June 26–29, 2026 at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco). Filmmaker Ivy Meeropol appears in person after the Saturday, June 27 show.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "best-summer-movies-film-festivals-sf-berkeley-2026",
"title": "11 of the Best Movies and Film Festivals to See This Summer",
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"headTitle": "11 of the Best Movies and Film Festivals to See This Summer | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Be sure to check out our full \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/summer-guide-2026\">2026 Summer Arts Guide to live music, movies, art, theater, festivals and more\u003c/a> in the Bay Area.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 10 years of unbridled lunacy on a national scale, I am reminded of a pleasurable childhood lesson: Movies are a fantastic means of escape. I confess I have sniffed, scoffed and sneered at mainstream flicks — an occupational hazard — for a good long while, but now I comprehend the need to tune out the news for (at least) a couple hours. I suspect you have reached that point as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you have my blessing to submerge yourself in any of the blithering, blubbering, eardrum-blasting flicks that Hollywood has lined up for our summer entertainment. Nerve-plucking horror, adolescent superhero shtick, impossible action-adventure, implausible romantic fantasy — live it up, friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re looking for a deep dive into the shlock de la saison, you walked into the wrong bistro, er, soapbox. Although I’ve included a few tentpoles below, if you own a television the studios will make sure you see the menu. So here are suggestions for lower-profile, higher-order escapism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989704\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989704\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000.jpg\" alt=\"women in costumes with signs\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1361\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-768x523.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-1536x1045.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nickelettes in June 1974. \u003ccite>(Betsy Newman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/welcome\">DocFest\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>May 28–June 7, 2026\u003cbr>\nRoxie Theater, San Francisco\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonfiction is the pathway to vicariously living other lives — some more precarious – for a little while. The expansive 25th edition of DocFest hosts the world premieres of a pair of prison-themed films by Oakland filmmakers, \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c2b1f04f4f536bedc7cc8e\">\u003cem>The Surrender of Waymond Hall\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c2b2ce7d35348a5d1e4455\">\u003cem>The End of Isolation\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Hitting a lighter musical note, the festival opens with the NOFX doc \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c801087edb042bb5e3975a\">\u003cem>40 Years of Fuckin’ Up\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and debuts \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69e22e22e5214d1cb3267a32\">\u003cem>Anarchy in High Heels: The Story of Les Nickelettes\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. DocFest revisits its roots, and the immortal \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/films/69ace874858aeadeab6936b4\">Atomic Ed\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/films/69ad97cc66714431517e6eaf\">Cynthia Plaster Caster\u003c/a>, with a trio of films from the festival’s inaugural 2001 year (with tickets at 2001 prices!).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989708\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000.jpg\" alt=\"two men face each other over typewriter\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg and Chris Messina as Irving P. Krick in director Anthony Maras’ ‘Pressure.’ \u003ccite>(Alex Bailey/Focus Features/STUDIOCANAL)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Pressure’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens May 29, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Maras’s behind-the-scenes World War II drama is of particular interest to history buffs and tech workers. Meteorologists Scottish (a splendid Andrew Scott) and American (Chris Messina, as the erstwhile villain of the piece) square off in a high-stakes, digital v. analog debate over the optimal date for D-Day. Brendan Fraser and Kerry Condon (as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and his personal secretary Kay Summersby) round out the cast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13919010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130.jpg\" alt=\"A teenage girl, green light glowing across her eyes, looks at something off in the distance with great horror.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13919010\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winona Ryder in Tim Burton’s 1988 film ‘Beetlejuice,’ playing Oct 16. at Crane Cove Park.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/sundown-cinema/\">Sundown Cinema\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 12–Oct. 16, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious San Francisco locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following last year’s truncated schedule, the free outdoor screening series returns with a full slate. The lineup won’t get your pulse racing — it’s geared toward families rather than the date crowd — which is what it takes sometimes to spend a summer evening in the elements hereabouts. The late Rob Reiner’s \u003cem>The Princess Bride\u003c/em> is the curtain-raiser, with Pixar’s \u003cem>Inside Out\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Parent Trap\u003c/em>, \u003cem>School of Rock\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Beetlejuice\u003c/em> in the wings. Bundle up, kiddos!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989703\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989703\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman screams as axe head comes through door\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-768x522.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-1536x1044.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shelley Duvall in a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film ‘The Shining,’ playing July 26 and 31 at BAMPFA. \u003ccite>(BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/complete-stanley-kubrick\">A Complete Stanley Kubrick\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 12–Aug. 30, 2026\u003cbr>\nBerkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coincidentally, Steven Spielberg’s latest hunk of speculative pulp fiction, \u003cem>Disclosure Day\u003c/em>, opens the same day this monumental retrospective begins. The directors are inextricably linked by \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/ai-artificial-intelligence\">A.I. Artificial Intelligence\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Aug. 20) which Kubrick developed and Spielberg directed in 2001. Resist the tempting timeliness of that title and catch up instead with the former photojournalist’s black-and-white masterpieces \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/killing\">The Killing\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/paths-glory\">Paths of Glory\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-bomb\">Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Actually, see everything on the big screen that the brilliant perfectionist made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blonde person in heavy makeup peers through jungle foliage\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989714\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">D’Arcy Drollinger in ‘Lady Champagne,’ playing June 17 as Frameline’s opening night film. \u003ccite>(Frameline)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/festival\">Frameline50\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 17–27, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Queer summer launches in theaters with the campy disaster comedy \u003cem>Stop! That! Train!\u003c/em> (opening June 12) and Hayley Kiyoko’s coming-of-age saga \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/girls-like-girls\">Girls Like Girls\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (June 19). Then the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival rolls out the gold carpet with a massive celebration of the present and past of gay and lesbian cinema. Local multihyphenate D’Arcy Drollinger kick-starts the festivities with the hoot-and-holler drag comedy \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/lady-champagne\">Lady Champagne\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, while documentary ace Jennifer M. Kroot launches Pride weekend with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/hunky-jesus\">Hunky Jesus\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a profile of San Francisco’s altogether wonderful Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. (If you’ve somehow never seen the landmark doc \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/times-harvey-milk\">The Times of Harvey Milk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, BAMPFA shows it July 10.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000.jpg\" alt=\"toy cowboy and toy astronaut crawl on flood of child's bedroom looking anxious\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1074\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989713\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-768x412.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-1536x825.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woody and Buzz Lightyear in Disney and Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 5.’ \u003ccite>(Pixar)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Toy Story 5’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens June 19, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emeryville’s Disney House has already scored one hit this year with \u003cem>Hoppers\u003c/em>. This Buzz and Woody and Bonnie and Jessie sequel to the sequel to the sequel, etc., arriving seven years to the weekend after the last installment, will rake in even more moolah. First, because it’s good, and second because it really might mark the end of the beloved animated franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000.jpg\" alt=\"Black man frozen in terror with tears in eyes\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989865\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Daniel Kaluuya in a scene from Jordan Peele’s 2017 film ‘Get Out,’ playing July 9 at the Roxie. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/series/fraenkel-film-festival-2026/\">Fraenkel Film Festival 2026\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>July 8–18, 2026\u003cbr>\nRoxie Theater, San Francisco\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curated by visual artists represented by San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery, this now-annual program is refreshingly unpredictable and eclectic. Brian De Palma’s timeless shocker \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/carrie/\">Carrie\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, chosen by Christian Marclay, kicks off the series with a scream while Jim Jarmusch’s haunted \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/mystery-train-35mm/\">Mystery Train\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Alec Soth’s pick) wraps things up with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Sandwiched in between you’ll find savory treats like Ingmar Bergman’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/persona/\">Persona\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (selected by Robert Adams), Claude Chabrol’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/la-ceremonie/\">La Cérémonie\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Katy Grannan) and Alfred Hitchcock’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/north-by-northwest-35mm/\">North by Northwest\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Lee Friedlander).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989711\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie.jpg\" alt=\"close-up of man with tipped back hat and plaid shirt\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989711\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still from ‘Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie,’ directed by Steven Pressman. \u003ccite>(SFJFF)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://jfi.org/2026-film-festival\">San Francisco Jewish Film Festival\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>July 16–Aug. 2, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the gutsiest film festivals in this time zone — by mission, by choice and by the circumstances of current events — SFJFF cultivates a space for discussion, debate and, yes, co-existence. It’s trickier to predict the program this year with Israeli filmmakers dealing with unprecedented levels of government opposition, but we can still expect a couple gut-punching documentaries along with French rom-coms and American explorations of identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/f_bKjZeJBBI?si=3PD3G_YorquA3mnl\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The Odyssey’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens July 17, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Nolan (\u003cem>Oppenheimer\u003c/em>), the self-anointed Philosopher King of Blockbuster Cinema, spent a quarter of a billion dollars of Universal’s money to adapt Homer’s epic. Bland-as-beans Matt Damon plays the Greek king Odysseus with an American accent and a natural beard. Anne Hathaway portrays Queen Penelope with an American accent and (presumably) no musical numbers. I’m rooting for Nolan’s turgid sword-and-sandal saga to resolve the historical mystery of how and where beach volleyball was invented, but I fear my hopes shall be dashed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989706\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989706\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1081\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-768x415.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-1536x830.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman in a scene from Gregg Araki’s ‘I Want Your Sex.’ \u003ccite>(Magnolia Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘I Want Your Sex’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens July 31, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Its come-hither title notwithstanding, Gregg Araki’s return to the big screen isn’t destined to be a multiplex phenomenon. Or maybe I’m completely off base, for LA’s gutter-glorious punk provocateur of the ’90s describes his new film as “a sex-positive love letter for Gen Z.” Cooper Hoffman plays a newbie hired by artist Olivia Wilde to be her quote-unquote sexual muse. Our hero embarks on an odyssey that presumably encompasses the siren call of lust, the rocky shoals of love, the green-eyed beast of jealousy and other mythic creatures. Daveed Diggs, Margaret Cho and Charli xcx join the tongue-in-cheek fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989709\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000.jpg\" alt=\"close group of Black men pose together\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1287\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989709\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-160x103.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-768x494.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-1536x988.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marlon Riggs, ‘Tongues Untied,’ 1989, playing Aug. 29 at BAMPFA. \u003ccite>(BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/made-berkeley-house-zaentz-built\">Made in Berkeley: The House That Zaentz Built\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Aug. 1–30, 2026\u003cbr>\nBerkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1980s, Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty wrote a song called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMlRzw1saw\">Zanz Kant Danz\u003c/a>” inspired by his furious legal battles with Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz. You may remember Zaentz as the Oscar-winning producer of \u003cem>Amadeus\u003c/em> and \u003cem>One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest\u003c/em>. The countless local documentary filmmakers with offices in the Fantasy Building saw Zaentz as a generally beneficent figure. This succinct series, co-presented with the Berkeley Film Foundation and featuring Marlon Riggs’ \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/tongues-untied\">Tongues Untied\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, Steven Okazaki’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/white-light-black-rain\">White Light/Black Rain\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and Vivian Kleiman’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/no-straight-lines\">No Straight Lines\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, honors the legacies of an erstwhile patron and singular artists.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "From Bay Area festivals to retrospectives to big-budget blockbusters, here are the not-to-miss movies. ",
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"title": "Bay Area Summer Movie Guide: Films and Fests Not to Miss | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Be sure to check out our full \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/summer-guide-2026\">2026 Summer Arts Guide to live music, movies, art, theater, festivals and more\u003c/a> in the Bay Area.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 10 years of unbridled lunacy on a national scale, I am reminded of a pleasurable childhood lesson: Movies are a fantastic means of escape. I confess I have sniffed, scoffed and sneered at mainstream flicks — an occupational hazard — for a good long while, but now I comprehend the need to tune out the news for (at least) a couple hours. I suspect you have reached that point as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you have my blessing to submerge yourself in any of the blithering, blubbering, eardrum-blasting flicks that Hollywood has lined up for our summer entertainment. Nerve-plucking horror, adolescent superhero shtick, impossible action-adventure, implausible romantic fantasy — live it up, friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re looking for a deep dive into the shlock de la saison, you walked into the wrong bistro, er, soapbox. Although I’ve included a few tentpoles below, if you own a television the studios will make sure you see the menu. So here are suggestions for lower-profile, higher-order escapism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989704\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989704\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000.jpg\" alt=\"women in costumes with signs\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1361\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-768x523.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Anarchy-in-High-Heels_2000-1536x1045.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nickelettes in June 1974. \u003ccite>(Betsy Newman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/welcome\">DocFest\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>May 28–June 7, 2026\u003cbr>\nRoxie Theater, San Francisco\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonfiction is the pathway to vicariously living other lives — some more precarious – for a little while. The expansive 25th edition of DocFest hosts the world premieres of a pair of prison-themed films by Oakland filmmakers, \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c2b1f04f4f536bedc7cc8e\">\u003cem>The Surrender of Waymond Hall\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c2b2ce7d35348a5d1e4455\">\u003cem>The End of Isolation\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Hitting a lighter musical note, the festival opens with the NOFX doc \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69c801087edb042bb5e3975a\">\u003cem>40 Years of Fuckin’ Up\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and debuts \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69e22e22e5214d1cb3267a32\">\u003cem>Anarchy in High Heels: The Story of Les Nickelettes\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. DocFest revisits its roots, and the immortal \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/films/69ace874858aeadeab6936b4\">Atomic Ed\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfdocfest2026.eventive.org/films/69ad97cc66714431517e6eaf\">Cynthia Plaster Caster\u003c/a>, with a trio of films from the festival’s inaugural 2001 year (with tickets at 2001 prices!).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989708\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000.jpg\" alt=\"two men face each other over typewriter\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/P_11544_R_rgb_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg and Chris Messina as Irving P. Krick in director Anthony Maras’ ‘Pressure.’ \u003ccite>(Alex Bailey/Focus Features/STUDIOCANAL)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Pressure’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens May 29, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Maras’s behind-the-scenes World War II drama is of particular interest to history buffs and tech workers. Meteorologists Scottish (a splendid Andrew Scott) and American (Chris Messina, as the erstwhile villain of the piece) square off in a high-stakes, digital v. analog debate over the optimal date for D-Day. Brendan Fraser and Kerry Condon (as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and his personal secretary Kay Summersby) round out the cast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13919010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130.jpg\" alt=\"A teenage girl, green light glowing across her eyes, looks at something off in the distance with great horror.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13919010\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/19-130-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winona Ryder in Tim Burton’s 1988 film ‘Beetlejuice,’ playing Oct 16. at Crane Cove Park.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/sundown-cinema/\">Sundown Cinema\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 12–Oct. 16, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious San Francisco locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following last year’s truncated schedule, the free outdoor screening series returns with a full slate. The lineup won’t get your pulse racing — it’s geared toward families rather than the date crowd — which is what it takes sometimes to spend a summer evening in the elements hereabouts. The late Rob Reiner’s \u003cem>The Princess Bride\u003c/em> is the curtain-raiser, with Pixar’s \u003cem>Inside Out\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Parent Trap\u003c/em>, \u003cem>School of Rock\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Beetlejuice\u003c/em> in the wings. Bundle up, kiddos!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989703\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989703\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman screams as axe head comes through door\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-768x522.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Kubrick_The-Shining_003_2000-1536x1044.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shelley Duvall in a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film ‘The Shining,’ playing July 26 and 31 at BAMPFA. \u003ccite>(BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/complete-stanley-kubrick\">A Complete Stanley Kubrick\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 12–Aug. 30, 2026\u003cbr>\nBerkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coincidentally, Steven Spielberg’s latest hunk of speculative pulp fiction, \u003cem>Disclosure Day\u003c/em>, opens the same day this monumental retrospective begins. The directors are inextricably linked by \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/ai-artificial-intelligence\">A.I. Artificial Intelligence\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Aug. 20) which Kubrick developed and Spielberg directed in 2001. Resist the tempting timeliness of that title and catch up instead with the former photojournalist’s black-and-white masterpieces \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/killing\">The Killing\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/paths-glory\">Paths of Glory\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-bomb\">Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Actually, see everything on the big screen that the brilliant perfectionist made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blonde person in heavy makeup peers through jungle foliage\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989714\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Lady-Champagne-2_D_Arcy-Drollinger_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">D’Arcy Drollinger in ‘Lady Champagne,’ playing June 17 as Frameline’s opening night film. \u003ccite>(Frameline)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/festival\">Frameline50\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>June 17–27, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Queer summer launches in theaters with the campy disaster comedy \u003cem>Stop! That! Train!\u003c/em> (opening June 12) and Hayley Kiyoko’s coming-of-age saga \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/girls-like-girls\">Girls Like Girls\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (June 19). Then the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival rolls out the gold carpet with a massive celebration of the present and past of gay and lesbian cinema. Local multihyphenate D’Arcy Drollinger kick-starts the festivities with the hoot-and-holler drag comedy \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/lady-champagne\">Lady Champagne\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, while documentary ace Jennifer M. Kroot launches Pride weekend with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/hunky-jesus\">Hunky Jesus\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a profile of San Francisco’s altogether wonderful Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. (If you’ve somehow never seen the landmark doc \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/times-harvey-milk\">The Times of Harvey Milk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, BAMPFA shows it July 10.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000.jpg\" alt=\"toy cowboy and toy astronaut crawl on flood of child's bedroom looking anxious\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1074\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989713\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-768x412.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/TOY-STORY5-2000-1536x825.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woody and Buzz Lightyear in Disney and Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 5.’ \u003ccite>(Pixar)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Toy Story 5’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens June 19, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emeryville’s Disney House has already scored one hit this year with \u003cem>Hoppers\u003c/em>. This Buzz and Woody and Bonnie and Jessie sequel to the sequel to the sequel, etc., arriving seven years to the weekend after the last installment, will rake in even more moolah. First, because it’s good, and second because it really might mark the end of the beloved animated franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000.jpg\" alt=\"Black man frozen in terror with tears in eyes\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989865\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/get-out_2000-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Daniel Kaluuya in a scene from Jordan Peele’s 2017 film ‘Get Out,’ playing July 9 at the Roxie. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/series/fraenkel-film-festival-2026/\">Fraenkel Film Festival 2026\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>July 8–18, 2026\u003cbr>\nRoxie Theater, San Francisco\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curated by visual artists represented by San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery, this now-annual program is refreshingly unpredictable and eclectic. Brian De Palma’s timeless shocker \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/carrie/\">Carrie\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, chosen by Christian Marclay, kicks off the series with a scream while Jim Jarmusch’s haunted \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/mystery-train-35mm/\">Mystery Train\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Alec Soth’s pick) wraps things up with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Sandwiched in between you’ll find savory treats like Ingmar Bergman’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/persona/\">Persona\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (selected by Robert Adams), Claude Chabrol’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/la-ceremonie/\">La Cérémonie\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Katy Grannan) and Alfred Hitchcock’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/north-by-northwest-35mm/\">North by Northwest\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (Lee Friedlander).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989711\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie.jpg\" alt=\"close-up of man with tipped back hat and plaid shirt\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989711\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Still_Dust_Bowls_and_Jewish_Souls_Another_Side_of_Woody_Guthrie-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still from ‘Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie,’ directed by Steven Pressman. \u003ccite>(SFJFF)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://jfi.org/2026-film-festival\">San Francisco Jewish Film Festival\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>July 16–Aug. 2, 2026\u003cbr>\nVarious locations\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the gutsiest film festivals in this time zone — by mission, by choice and by the circumstances of current events — SFJFF cultivates a space for discussion, debate and, yes, co-existence. It’s trickier to predict the program this year with Israeli filmmakers dealing with unprecedented levels of government opposition, but we can still expect a couple gut-punching documentaries along with French rom-coms and American explorations of identity.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/f_bKjZeJBBI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/f_bKjZeJBBI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>‘The Odyssey’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens July 17, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Nolan (\u003cem>Oppenheimer\u003c/em>), the self-anointed Philosopher King of Blockbuster Cinema, spent a quarter of a billion dollars of Universal’s money to adapt Homer’s epic. Bland-as-beans Matt Damon plays the Greek king Odysseus with an American accent and a natural beard. Anne Hathaway portrays Queen Penelope with an American accent and (presumably) no musical numbers. I’m rooting for Nolan’s turgid sword-and-sandal saga to resolve the historical mystery of how and where beach volleyball was invented, but I fear my hopes shall be dashed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989706\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989706\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1081\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-768x415.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/IWYS_2000-1536x830.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman in a scene from Gregg Araki’s ‘I Want Your Sex.’ \u003ccite>(Magnolia Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘I Want Your Sex’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Opens July 31, 2026\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Its come-hither title notwithstanding, Gregg Araki’s return to the big screen isn’t destined to be a multiplex phenomenon. Or maybe I’m completely off base, for LA’s gutter-glorious punk provocateur of the ’90s describes his new film as “a sex-positive love letter for Gen Z.” Cooper Hoffman plays a newbie hired by artist Olivia Wilde to be her quote-unquote sexual muse. Our hero embarks on an odyssey that presumably encompasses the siren call of lust, the rocky shoals of love, the green-eyed beast of jealousy and other mythic creatures. Daveed Diggs, Margaret Cho and Charli xcx join the tongue-in-cheek fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13989709\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000.jpg\" alt=\"close group of Black men pose together\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1287\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13989709\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-160x103.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-768x494.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Riggs_Tongues-Untied_003_2000-1536x988.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marlon Riggs, ‘Tongues Untied,’ 1989, playing Aug. 29 at BAMPFA. \u003ccite>(BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/made-berkeley-house-zaentz-built\">Made in Berkeley: The House That Zaentz Built\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Aug. 1–30, 2026\u003cbr>\nBerkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1980s, Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty wrote a song called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMlRzw1saw\">Zanz Kant Danz\u003c/a>” inspired by his furious legal battles with Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz. You may remember Zaentz as the Oscar-winning producer of \u003cem>Amadeus\u003c/em> and \u003cem>One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest\u003c/em>. The countless local documentary filmmakers with offices in the Fantasy Building saw Zaentz as a generally beneficent figure. This succinct series, co-presented with the Berkeley Film Foundation and featuring Marlon Riggs’ \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/tongues-untied\">Tongues Untied\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, Steven Okazaki’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/white-light-black-rain\">White Light/Black Rain\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and Vivian Kleiman’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/no-straight-lines\">No Straight Lines\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, honors the legacies of an erstwhile patron and singular artists.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "bampfa-lucrecia-martel-un-destino-comun-film",
"title": "BAMPFA Spotlights Lucrecia Martel’s Parables of Middle-Class Desperation",
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"headTitle": "BAMPFA Spotlights Lucrecia Martel’s Parables of Middle-Class Desperation | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/headless-woman\">The Headless Woman\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2008), Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel’s disturbing third feature, opens on three boys and a dog running and playing in the sun alongside a semi-rural two-lane highway. From the very first frame — there are 24 in a second, remember — the filmmaker thrusts us into the heightened immediacy of \u003cem>now\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing of particular importance seems to be taking place, or maybe we’re not attuned to it. The soundtrack pops with shouts and barks and, on a subliminal wavelength, also unnerves us. Our antennae detect a danger in the vicinity, or on the horizon, that makes us shift uncomfortably in our seat. We are already immersed and, to Martel’s way of thinking, complicit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most acclaimed and unsettling filmmakers working today, Martel is the focus of a Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive career retrospective timed to her current residency at UC Berkeley. \u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/lucrecia-martel-un-destino-comun\">Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común\u003c/a> opens Saturday, April 4 with her stunning debut \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/cienaga\">La ciénaga\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2001) and concludes Sunday, April 19 with her most recent feature \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/zama\">Zama\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2017), the odd and fascinating tale of a frustrated Spanish functionary losing his bearings in colonial Paraguay. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988252\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000.jpg\" alt=\"small crowd looks down hillside at white tent\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988252\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘Our Land/Nuestra Tierra,’ 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The series also includes a sold-out screening of Martel’s 2025 documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/our-land-nuestra-tierra\">Our Land/Nuestra Tierra\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which plays April 16 at the \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/our-land-nuestra-tierra/\">Roxie\u003c/a> and opens May 1 in the Bay Area. This comparatively straightforward saga of crime and injustice documents the 2018 trial of the killers of unarmed activist Javier Chocobar in Argentina’s Tucumán Province. By way of rebutting their attorneys’ claim that the defendants had the right to access the disputed land and the Indigenous Chuschagasta community had no legal claim, Martel assembles acres of photographic, anecdotal and moral evidence to the contrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her fiction features, Martel typically provides just enough context and bones of a story to give the viewer some footing. Her insistence that we interpret the perceptions and responses of the characters, along with her propensity to compress and elongate time, results in ambiguous, open-ended films whose pleasure correlates with the viewer’s willingness to be challenged. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cinephiles said similar things about the then-radical films of Michelangelo Antonioni and Alain Resnais. They also spent hours, if you can imagine, discussing the movies’ meanings and themes. Martel’s films invite equally intense conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2015px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009.jpg\" alt=\"older woman caresses younger woman's face as they sit on bed\" width=\"2015\" height=\"835\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988248\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009.jpg 2015w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-2000x829.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-1536x637.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2015px) 100vw, 2015px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">María Onetto and Inés Efron in a scene from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘The Headless Woman,’ 2008. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Whenever you manage, through cinema, to cast doubt on the assumed nature of things, you might be approaching something really interesting,” Martel said in a 2019 interview with the Museum of Modern Art’s online journal \u003ca href=\"https://post.moma.org/to-cast-doubt-on-the-assumed-nature-of-things-an-interview-with-lucrecia-martel/\">post: notes on art in a global context\u003c/a>. “And when you have done that once, there’s no way back. Because once you become aware of what makes no sense, never again can reality manage to completely hide its quality of disguise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>La ciénaga\u003c/em> (\u003cem>The Swamp\u003c/em>) is a fraught, impressionistic portrait of two decaying middle-class families. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/holy-girl\">The Holy Girl\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2004) explores the twisted entanglement between a doctor attending a conference, a confused-by-religion teenager and her divorced mother. \u003cem>The Headless Woman\u003c/em> (2008) follows a well-off woman in the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident. \u003cem>Zama\u003c/em> (adapted from Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel) is likewise a portrait of privilege, stasis and desperation, although it more explicitly acknowledges colonial and (by extension) contemporary prejudice and exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Martel resists convention, plot summaries only convey the surface of her movies. Nor can synopses convey the importance of the outdoors — the natural world, certainly, but the land as identification, inheritance, history — as an embedded theme. The recurring presence of Indigenous people in various roles (employees, servants, children on the side of a highway), whether acknowledged by the characters or not, is a reminder to audiences of Argentina’s past and present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1440px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003.jpg\" alt=\"two girls swim on their backs in blue pool\" width=\"1440\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1440px) 100vw, 1440px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘The Holy Girl,’ 2004. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Martel’s films are populated with adults so enmeshed in lives of pointless desperation that they lose touch with their children. If they can deny reality to the degree that their kids aren’t a priority, they are surely indifferent to a larger historical and geographic perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is an immediacy and energy to Martel’s work that hooks us and commands our attention, and feels completely of the moment. And although her films are rooted in specific Argentine experience and history, their invocations of the intersection of power and gender, and power and class, feel especially relevant now to (North) American audiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have heard it described as cognitive dissonance. The comfort and complacency that has long existed in a certain strata of American society can’t continue, not in the same way and with the same obliviousness, in a tidal wave of increasing inequality, reduced rights, ICE detention centers, ongoing war, bottomless lies and a collapse of the moral code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we can recognize ourselves in Lucrecia Martel’s characters — selfish, ridiculous, dumbstruck, unmoored, committed to a failed system — we might begin to live in the urgency of \u003cem>now\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/lucrecia-martel-un-destino-comun\">Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común\u003c/a>’ plays April 4–19, 2026 at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2155 Center St., Berkeley).\u003c/i> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/headless-woman\">The Headless Woman\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2008), Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel’s disturbing third feature, opens on three boys and a dog running and playing in the sun alongside a semi-rural two-lane highway. From the very first frame — there are 24 in a second, remember — the filmmaker thrusts us into the heightened immediacy of \u003cem>now\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing of particular importance seems to be taking place, or maybe we’re not attuned to it. The soundtrack pops with shouts and barks and, on a subliminal wavelength, also unnerves us. Our antennae detect a danger in the vicinity, or on the horizon, that makes us shift uncomfortably in our seat. We are already immersed and, to Martel’s way of thinking, complicit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most acclaimed and unsettling filmmakers working today, Martel is the focus of a Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive career retrospective timed to her current residency at UC Berkeley. \u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/lucrecia-martel-un-destino-comun\">Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común\u003c/a> opens Saturday, April 4 with her stunning debut \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/cienaga\">La ciénaga\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2001) and concludes Sunday, April 19 with her most recent feature \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/zama\">Zama\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2017), the odd and fascinating tale of a frustrated Spanish functionary losing his bearings in colonial Paraguay. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988252\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000.jpg\" alt=\"small crowd looks down hillside at white tent\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988252\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Nuestra-Tierra_001_2000-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘Our Land/Nuestra Tierra,’ 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The series also includes a sold-out screening of Martel’s 2025 documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/our-land-nuestra-tierra\">Our Land/Nuestra Tierra\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which plays April 16 at the \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/our-land-nuestra-tierra/\">Roxie\u003c/a> and opens May 1 in the Bay Area. This comparatively straightforward saga of crime and injustice documents the 2018 trial of the killers of unarmed activist Javier Chocobar in Argentina’s Tucumán Province. By way of rebutting their attorneys’ claim that the defendants had the right to access the disputed land and the Indigenous Chuschagasta community had no legal claim, Martel assembles acres of photographic, anecdotal and moral evidence to the contrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her fiction features, Martel typically provides just enough context and bones of a story to give the viewer some footing. Her insistence that we interpret the perceptions and responses of the characters, along with her propensity to compress and elongate time, results in ambiguous, open-ended films whose pleasure correlates with the viewer’s willingness to be challenged. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cinephiles said similar things about the then-radical films of Michelangelo Antonioni and Alain Resnais. They also spent hours, if you can imagine, discussing the movies’ meanings and themes. Martel’s films invite equally intense conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2015px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009.jpg\" alt=\"older woman caresses younger woman's face as they sit on bed\" width=\"2015\" height=\"835\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988248\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009.jpg 2015w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-2000x829.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Headless-Woman_009-1536x637.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2015px) 100vw, 2015px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">María Onetto and Inés Efron in a scene from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘The Headless Woman,’ 2008. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Whenever you manage, through cinema, to cast doubt on the assumed nature of things, you might be approaching something really interesting,” Martel said in a 2019 interview with the Museum of Modern Art’s online journal \u003ca href=\"https://post.moma.org/to-cast-doubt-on-the-assumed-nature-of-things-an-interview-with-lucrecia-martel/\">post: notes on art in a global context\u003c/a>. “And when you have done that once, there’s no way back. Because once you become aware of what makes no sense, never again can reality manage to completely hide its quality of disguise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>La ciénaga\u003c/em> (\u003cem>The Swamp\u003c/em>) is a fraught, impressionistic portrait of two decaying middle-class families. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/event/holy-girl\">The Holy Girl\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (2004) explores the twisted entanglement between a doctor attending a conference, a confused-by-religion teenager and her divorced mother. \u003cem>The Headless Woman\u003c/em> (2008) follows a well-off woman in the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident. \u003cem>Zama\u003c/em> (adapted from Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel) is likewise a portrait of privilege, stasis and desperation, although it more explicitly acknowledges colonial and (by extension) contemporary prejudice and exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Martel resists convention, plot summaries only convey the surface of her movies. Nor can synopses convey the importance of the outdoors — the natural world, certainly, but the land as identification, inheritance, history — as an embedded theme. The recurring presence of Indigenous people in various roles (employees, servants, children on the side of a highway), whether acknowledged by the characters or not, is a reminder to audiences of Argentina’s past and present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13988249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1440px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003.jpg\" alt=\"two girls swim on their backs in blue pool\" width=\"1440\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13988249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Martel_Holy-Girl_003-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1440px) 100vw, 1440px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Lucrecia Martel’s ‘The Holy Girl,’ 2004. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of BAMPFA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Martel’s films are populated with adults so enmeshed in lives of pointless desperation that they lose touch with their children. If they can deny reality to the degree that their kids aren’t a priority, they are surely indifferent to a larger historical and geographic perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is an immediacy and energy to Martel’s work that hooks us and commands our attention, and feels completely of the moment. And although her films are rooted in specific Argentine experience and history, their invocations of the intersection of power and gender, and power and class, feel especially relevant now to (North) American audiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have heard it described as cognitive dissonance. The comfort and complacency that has long existed in a certain strata of American society can’t continue, not in the same way and with the same obliviousness, in a tidal wave of increasing inequality, reduced rights, ICE detention centers, ongoing war, bottomless lies and a collapse of the moral code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we can recognize ourselves in Lucrecia Martel’s characters — selfish, ridiculous, dumbstruck, unmoored, committed to a failed system — we might begin to live in the urgency of \u003cem>now\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘\u003ca href=\"https://bampfa.org/program/lucrecia-martel-un-destino-comun\">Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común\u003c/a>’ plays April 4–19, 2026 at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2155 Center St., Berkeley).\u003c/i> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s fourth and most ambitious feature, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/palestine-36\">Palestine ’36\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (opening Friday, March 27 at several Bay Area theaters), is the kind of movie that critics like to say nobody makes anymore: an expensive, expansive period piece that movingly depicts the impossible sacrifices of everyday people against a backdrop of geopolitical events whose consequences reverberate to this very minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palestine’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar (it was shortlisted but not nominated), \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> has both the virtues and flaws of the typical historical epic in that it necessarily compresses multiple perspectives into two hours. While the stakes are made palpable and our emotional connections to the characters are solid, key dramatic events come and go in a flash and some of the dialogue is overly succinct and on the nose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your land is where your people are buried,” a grandmother instructs her granddaughter. “You have something more powerful than the entire British Empire. You come from a line of brave people who love their land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987961\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2.jpg\" alt=\"two children run through flowering field\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987961\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Wardi Eilabouni as Afra (left). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A speech underscoring the values of home, identity and ownership comes with the territory, pardon the pun. Jacir’s great contribution is immersing us in pre-World War II Palestine through careful attention to clothes and settings, augmented with restored and colorized archival footage. It is a pleasure to inhabit a physical, analog world where you can practically taste the dust and the grape leaves, and a 19th-century single-shot pistol has the weight of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shot on location in Palestine and Jordan, \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> is at heart a multi-generational mosaic of profiles in radicalization. Surely you aren’t surprised to hear that this is a politically charged film, although (for better or worse) it never stops in its tracks for a utopian debate of principles and tactics à la English filmmaker Ken Loach (\u003cem>Land and Freedom\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in 1936 when a young villager, Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya), comes to Jerusalem to be the assistant to a well-off publisher whose independent wife, Khouloud (Yasmine Al Massri), is an accomplished journalist. The traditional agrarian life of the nearby villages is conveyed through the aforementioned grandmother (a fierce Hiam Abbas), her widowed daughter Rabab (Yafa Bakri) and granddaughter Afra (Wardi Eilabouni).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987962\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3.jpg\" alt=\"three military men drive in open-topped car\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987962\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Robert Aramayo as Captain Wingate (far right). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Great Britain has been in charge of Palestine since the end of World War I, and the Brits are represented here by doddering High Commissioner Wauchope (Jeremy Irons), idealistic young diplomat Thomas (Billy Howle) and the singularly brutal Captain Wingate (Robert Aramayo).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although there have been Jews in Palestine for centuries — with tensions and violence between Jews and Palestinians simmering for a while and the Jewish population increasing as Europeans flee anti-Semitism — it’s important to note that \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> is a saga of the conflict between the indigenous Arabs and the occupying British. The Jewish settlers are almost entirely off-screen, although their presence and influence is referenced throughout the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Arabs see the British as siding with the Zionists through a mix of condescension, prejudice and the calculations of out-of-touch London politicians. Yet not all the Arabs have thrown in with the armed rebels living in the mountains; some of the old-line, land-owning establishment types are hedging their bets by staying aligned with the British.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4.jpg\" alt=\"suited women march with banners\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987963\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Yasmine Al Massri as Khouloud (second from right). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the story centers on colonialists and insurgents of another time, it’s impossible to miss the contemporary echoes in some of Jacir’s compositions. Women throwing stones at fleeing British soldiers call to mind the images of children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers during the first intifada. The British army blowing up stone Palestinian houses inevitably calls down through the years to the Israeli army destroying Palestinian houses on various dubious premises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roger Ebert defined the movies as a great empathy machine, in that we see and identify with people whose lives are not ours. As we sit here today, the hideous crimes perpetuated against Palestinians and Israelis by each other in the last few years have had the additional effect of hardening everyone’s attitudes and positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> may not be a film that wins or changes hearts and minds. It does offer an opening, for those who want to take it, to step into the realm of compassion, if only for two hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘Palestine ’36’ opens Friday, March 27 at \u003ca href=\"https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/palestine-36\">select Bay Area theaters\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s fourth and most ambitious feature, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/palestine-36\">Palestine ’36\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (opening Friday, March 27 at several Bay Area theaters), is the kind of movie that critics like to say nobody makes anymore: an expensive, expansive period piece that movingly depicts the impossible sacrifices of everyday people against a backdrop of geopolitical events whose consequences reverberate to this very minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palestine’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar (it was shortlisted but not nominated), \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> has both the virtues and flaws of the typical historical epic in that it necessarily compresses multiple perspectives into two hours. While the stakes are made palpable and our emotional connections to the characters are solid, key dramatic events come and go in a flash and some of the dialogue is overly succinct and on the nose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your land is where your people are buried,” a grandmother instructs her granddaughter. “You have something more powerful than the entire British Empire. You come from a line of brave people who love their land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987961\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2.jpg\" alt=\"two children run through flowering field\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987961\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_2-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Wardi Eilabouni as Afra (left). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A speech underscoring the values of home, identity and ownership comes with the territory, pardon the pun. Jacir’s great contribution is immersing us in pre-World War II Palestine through careful attention to clothes and settings, augmented with restored and colorized archival footage. It is a pleasure to inhabit a physical, analog world where you can practically taste the dust and the grape leaves, and a 19th-century single-shot pistol has the weight of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shot on location in Palestine and Jordan, \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> is at heart a multi-generational mosaic of profiles in radicalization. Surely you aren’t surprised to hear that this is a politically charged film, although (for better or worse) it never stops in its tracks for a utopian debate of principles and tactics à la English filmmaker Ken Loach (\u003cem>Land and Freedom\u003c/em>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in 1936 when a young villager, Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya), comes to Jerusalem to be the assistant to a well-off publisher whose independent wife, Khouloud (Yasmine Al Massri), is an accomplished journalist. The traditional agrarian life of the nearby villages is conveyed through the aforementioned grandmother (a fierce Hiam Abbas), her widowed daughter Rabab (Yafa Bakri) and granddaughter Afra (Wardi Eilabouni).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987962\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3.jpg\" alt=\"three military men drive in open-topped car\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987962\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine36_3-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Robert Aramayo as Captain Wingate (far right). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Great Britain has been in charge of Palestine since the end of World War I, and the Brits are represented here by doddering High Commissioner Wauchope (Jeremy Irons), idealistic young diplomat Thomas (Billy Howle) and the singularly brutal Captain Wingate (Robert Aramayo).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although there have been Jews in Palestine for centuries — with tensions and violence between Jews and Palestinians simmering for a while and the Jewish population increasing as Europeans flee anti-Semitism — it’s important to note that \u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> is a saga of the conflict between the indigenous Arabs and the occupying British. The Jewish settlers are almost entirely off-screen, although their presence and influence is referenced throughout the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Arabs see the British as siding with the Zionists through a mix of condescension, prejudice and the calculations of out-of-touch London politicians. Yet not all the Arabs have thrown in with the armed rebels living in the mountains; some of the old-line, land-owning establishment types are hedging their bets by staying aligned with the British.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13987963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4.jpg\" alt=\"suited women march with banners\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13987963\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Palestine-36_4-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from ‘Palestine ’36,’ featuring Yasmine Al Massri as Khouloud (second from right). \u003ccite>(Watermelon Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the story centers on colonialists and insurgents of another time, it’s impossible to miss the contemporary echoes in some of Jacir’s compositions. Women throwing stones at fleeing British soldiers call to mind the images of children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers during the first intifada. The British army blowing up stone Palestinian houses inevitably calls down through the years to the Israeli army destroying Palestinian houses on various dubious premises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roger Ebert defined the movies as a great empathy machine, in that we see and identify with people whose lives are not ours. As we sit here today, the hideous crimes perpetuated against Palestinians and Israelis by each other in the last few years have had the additional effect of hardening everyone’s attitudes and positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Palestine ’36\u003c/em> may not be a film that wins or changes hearts and minds. It does offer an opening, for those who want to take it, to step into the realm of compassion, if only for two hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘Palestine ’36’ opens Friday, March 27 at \u003ca href=\"https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/palestine-36\">select Bay Area theaters\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-useful-ghost-review-thai-film-vacuum-cleaner-romance",
"title": "For Valentine’s, a Thai Fantasy About a Ghost in a (Vacuum) Machine",
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"headTitle": "For Valentine’s, a Thai Fantasy About a Ghost in a (Vacuum) Machine | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Beneath its placid and gorgeously manicured surface, the quasi-supernatural Thai romantic fantasy \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em> conceals a deep well of weirdness. A reserved yet occasionally ribald rendering of omnisexual love, longing and belonging, the Roxie’s Valentine’s weekend offering (\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/a-useful-ghost/#showtimes\">playing Feb. 13–16 and 19\u003c/a>) should find plenty of admirers in what used to be called Babylon by the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13986620']Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke begins his Cannes prizewinning debut feature with an arresting tableau of Indigenous and historical figures posing for an artist. The completed frieze has only a short life in a public square, however, before it is removed, damaged, discarded and dissipated into dust — albeit not the same particles that make Academic Ladyboy (yes, that is the name of the shyly endearing character played by Wisarut Homhuan) sneeze, and prompt him to buy a vacuum cleaner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dust has many meanings in \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em>, primarily as the physical and psychological residue of memories. On the personal level, dust suggests the lingering presence of deceased lovers. The filmmaker also laments the loss of historical memory, represented by the destroyed artwork (and its forgotten subjects) and the 2010 massacre of protestors by Thai soldiers that he explicitly references much later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986672\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986672\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman embraces man from behind\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Politics and history are not on Ladyboy’s mind, though, when a hiccup in his new appliance necessitates a visit from a repairman. The preternaturally composed Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) explains, possibly as a means of seduction, that there’s a ghost in Ladyboy’s machine, and he begins to recount the drolly haunted fable that comprises the heart of \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film is a compendium of unorthodox choices, starting with a gay romance as the frame for a heterosexual love story. Two more homosexual couples will join the proceedings; the audience discovers one of those relationships in flagrante. Partial spoiler alert: Three of the four couples share the same obstacle, namely, that one partner is dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie gets to the central relationship much, much faster than I have, patient reader. March (Witsarut Himmarat), mourning a loss, has contracted a respiratory illness. His late wife, Nat (Davika Hoorne), takes up residence in a vacuum cleaner to help cure him. This is not quite as random as you may think because Nat’s perennially disapproving mother-in-law Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon) owns the vacuum cleaner factory at the center of all the paranormal shenanigans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986669\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000.jpg\" alt=\"group of six older people face a vacuum cleaner\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Boonbunchachoke’s precise compositions reminded me of absurdist Swedish filmmaker and Roxie favorite Roy Andersson (\u003cem>A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence\u003c/em>), so I expected oddball behavior passing as normal. The machine (that is, Nat) waiting patiently in line to get on an elevator at the hospital has the anthropomorphic pathos of a Pixar sequence. Suman’s dead-serious admonishment of March, “Please stop screwing your vacuum,” is a pretty good laugh line. (If you’re wondering if a vacuum cleaner can give consent, the answer is “Yes, please.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other bits are more jarring than funny, like the monks commissioned by Suman to dispel Nat whose vitriol includes the c-word. The electroconvulsive therapy used to erase March’s memories of Nat — and which is subsequently employed for political purposes — isn’t intended to be funny but it certainly puts a chill on the light comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986670\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986670\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000.jpg\" alt=\"medical staff around a man in a chair, gagged with soundproofing on walls\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While it’s understandable, though not ideal, that the tone of a writer-director’s first feature wavers from time to time, it’s harder to accept the variability of the performances. The pretty young couple playing Nat and March don’t display much more emotional range than the vacuum cleaner — though it’s certainly possible that’s another joke I missed. (For the record, the machine is exceedingly well cast.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13986658']\u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em> manages to be both earnest and transgressive, thoughtful and snotty. It’s an impeccably designed argument for “the force of love” (as March tells his mother) and against the curse of loneliness, with a political hand grenade tucked inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather unexpectedly, given its basic premise of a ghost inhabiting a vacuum cleaner, \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em> is a deeply moralistic film and a comedy of conscience. In Boonbunchachoke’s view, there’s a place for everyone, even ghosts.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/a-useful-ghost/#showtimes\">A Useful Ghost\u003c/a>’ plays at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco) Feb. 13–16 and 19, 2026.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke begins his Cannes prizewinning debut feature with an arresting tableau of Indigenous and historical figures posing for an artist. The completed frieze has only a short life in a public square, however, before it is removed, damaged, discarded and dissipated into dust — albeit not the same particles that make Academic Ladyboy (yes, that is the name of the shyly endearing character played by Wisarut Homhuan) sneeze, and prompt him to buy a vacuum cleaner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dust has many meanings in \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em>, primarily as the physical and psychological residue of memories. On the personal level, dust suggests the lingering presence of deceased lovers. The filmmaker also laments the loss of historical memory, represented by the destroyed artwork (and its forgotten subjects) and the 2010 massacre of protestors by Thai soldiers that he explicitly references much later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986672\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986672\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman embraces man from behind\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-04_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Politics and history are not on Ladyboy’s mind, though, when a hiccup in his new appliance necessitates a visit from a repairman. The preternaturally composed Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) explains, possibly as a means of seduction, that there’s a ghost in Ladyboy’s machine, and he begins to recount the drolly haunted fable that comprises the heart of \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film is a compendium of unorthodox choices, starting with a gay romance as the frame for a heterosexual love story. Two more homosexual couples will join the proceedings; the audience discovers one of those relationships in flagrante. Partial spoiler alert: Three of the four couples share the same obstacle, namely, that one partner is dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie gets to the central relationship much, much faster than I have, patient reader. March (Witsarut Himmarat), mourning a loss, has contracted a respiratory illness. His late wife, Nat (Davika Hoorne), takes up residence in a vacuum cleaner to help cure him. This is not quite as random as you may think because Nat’s perennially disapproving mother-in-law Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon) owns the vacuum cleaner factory at the center of all the paranormal shenanigans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986669\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000.jpg\" alt=\"group of six older people face a vacuum cleaner\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-0_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Boonbunchachoke’s precise compositions reminded me of absurdist Swedish filmmaker and Roxie favorite Roy Andersson (\u003cem>A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence\u003c/em>), so I expected oddball behavior passing as normal. The machine (that is, Nat) waiting patiently in line to get on an elevator at the hospital has the anthropomorphic pathos of a Pixar sequence. Suman’s dead-serious admonishment of March, “Please stop screwing your vacuum,” is a pretty good laugh line. (If you’re wondering if a vacuum cleaner can give consent, the answer is “Yes, please.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other bits are more jarring than funny, like the monks commissioned by Suman to dispel Nat whose vitriol includes the c-word. The electroconvulsive therapy used to erase March’s memories of Nat — and which is subsequently employed for political purposes — isn’t intended to be funny but it certainly puts a chill on the light comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13986670\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986670\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000.jpg\" alt=\"medical staff around a man in a chair, gagged with soundproofing on walls\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/AUG-03_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s ‘A Useful Ghost.’ \u003ccite>(Cineverse)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While it’s understandable, though not ideal, that the tone of a writer-director’s first feature wavers from time to time, it’s harder to accept the variability of the performances. The pretty young couple playing Nat and March don’t display much more emotional range than the vacuum cleaner — though it’s certainly possible that’s another joke I missed. (For the record, the machine is exceedingly well cast.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em> manages to be both earnest and transgressive, thoughtful and snotty. It’s an impeccably designed argument for “the force of love” (as March tells his mother) and against the curse of loneliness, with a political hand grenade tucked inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather unexpectedly, given its basic premise of a ghost inhabiting a vacuum cleaner, \u003cem>A Useful Ghost\u003c/em> is a deeply moralistic film and a comedy of conscience. In Boonbunchachoke’s view, there’s a place for everyone, even ghosts.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/a-useful-ghost/#showtimes\">A Useful Ghost\u003c/a>’ plays at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco) Feb. 13–16 and 19, 2026.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A film about faith and other leaps, Mona Fastvold’s remarkable \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> does not ask us to endorse or embrace the tenets of the 18th-century English sect called United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming, aka Shaking Quakers, aka the Shakers. Given that an important principle of co-founder Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) was celibacy, many viewers would find that a bridge too far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13985705']Several of the Shakers’ other core values, like cooperation, collaboration, ecstasy and equality among genders resonate clearly, especially for anyone who can recall the Northern California communes of the 1960s and 70s. The pleasure and power of \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> (opening Jan. 23), though, is not to be found in the utopian speeches but in surrendering to the selfless exhibition of true believers believing. If you are willing to be entranced — to accede from time to time to a trance state — you will have a uniquely thrilling time at the movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story opens in the 1740s in Manchester, England, where the child Ann labors in a textile factory. As she grows up, her spiritual journey takes her to Jane and James Wardley (Stacy Martin and Scott Handy), through whose fervid Quaker prayer group she meets her husband Abraham Standerin (Christopher Abbott) and develops her specific philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985686\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"man and woman face each other in room of people\" width=\"2000\" height=\"827\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-1536x635.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christopher Abbott and Amanda Seyfried in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Marriage brings physical and psychic pain, and Ann’s crucible is further forged in the fire of family tragedy. Even as she is accepted by many of the Wardley circle and her stalwart brother William (Lewis Pullman) as the true leader, Mother Ann (as she is now called) captures the unwelcome attention of the powers-that-be and is incarcerated for a couple weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Shakers’ saga comes into focus as a familiar dynamic of nonconformity and determination, fueled by the certainty of religious faith, running into both official and street opposition, with blood being spilled. We judge for ourselves how much of the animosity is an overreaction to noisy praying and how much is fear and hatred of a powerful woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The departure of the Shakers by boat to America in 1774, trading the Old World for the New, is a hugely important development for the sect. The movie opens up as well, with Manchester’s drab, chilly confines replaced by America’s broad vistas and natural light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fastvold and Brady Corbet’s literate script, brought to pulsing life by a committed cast led by Seyfried, carries \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> a long way. But a wholly unexpected element puts the film over the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985685\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985685\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman and man on deck of sailing ship\" width=\"2000\" height=\"828\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-1536x636.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Seyfried and Lewis Pullman journey to America in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Vincent Minnelli and Bob Fosse artfully demonstrated, music and movement — song and dance — are powerful vehicles for not only conveying deep emotions but enrolling audiences in leaps of joy and amazement and flights of mind. Daring to dare is the sentiment at the heart of a movie musical, and the quality that moviegoers respond to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> isn’t exactly a musical in the sense that the songs don’t tell the story. Fastvold and composer Daniel Blumberg (whose score for Fastvold and Corbet’s \u003cem>The Brutalist\u003c/em> won the Oscar last year) chose a dozen melodies from the Shaker hymnal archive, and Celia Rowlson-Hall choreographed a mix of individual and ensemble numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13985320']These dances don’t just prevent \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> from succumbing to the stuck-in-wax fate of a lot of standard biopics and period pieces. They bring the magic, and the entrancement, without feeling anachronistic and pulling us out of the 18th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> is set in a world very different from ours and also not so different, a world of mysteries and dangers where people fear new ideas and are made to fear newcomers. Where superstitions or religious dogma or conspiracy theories are cited to soothe our uncertainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps every utopian endeavor is fated to come to an end, whether from internal dynamics or external forces. Maybe our task is to take inspiration from the faith and the effort. \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> asks us to consider whether we are on the side of the creators or the destroyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ opens Jan. 23, 2026 in Bay Area theaters.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A film about faith and other leaps, Mona Fastvold’s remarkable \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> does not ask us to endorse or embrace the tenets of the 18th-century English sect called United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming, aka Shaking Quakers, aka the Shakers. Given that an important principle of co-founder Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) was celibacy, many viewers would find that a bridge too far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Several of the Shakers’ other core values, like cooperation, collaboration, ecstasy and equality among genders resonate clearly, especially for anyone who can recall the Northern California communes of the 1960s and 70s. The pleasure and power of \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> (opening Jan. 23), though, is not to be found in the utopian speeches but in surrendering to the selfless exhibition of true believers believing. If you are willing to be entranced — to accede from time to time to a trance state — you will have a uniquely thrilling time at the movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story opens in the 1740s in Manchester, England, where the child Ann labors in a textile factory. As she grows up, her spiritual journey takes her to Jane and James Wardley (Stacy Martin and Scott Handy), through whose fervid Quaker prayer group she meets her husband Abraham Standerin (Christopher Abbott) and develops her specific philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985686\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"man and woman face each other in room of people\" width=\"2000\" height=\"827\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00144_v2_2000-1536x635.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christopher Abbott and Amanda Seyfried in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Marriage brings physical and psychic pain, and Ann’s crucible is further forged in the fire of family tragedy. Even as she is accepted by many of the Wardley circle and her stalwart brother William (Lewis Pullman) as the true leader, Mother Ann (as she is now called) captures the unwelcome attention of the powers-that-be and is incarcerated for a couple weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Shakers’ saga comes into focus as a familiar dynamic of nonconformity and determination, fueled by the certainty of religious faith, running into both official and street opposition, with blood being spilled. We judge for ourselves how much of the animosity is an overreaction to noisy praying and how much is fear and hatred of a powerful woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The departure of the Shakers by boat to America in 1774, trading the Old World for the New, is a hugely important development for the sect. The movie opens up as well, with Manchester’s drab, chilly confines replaced by America’s broad vistas and natural light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fastvold and Brady Corbet’s literate script, brought to pulsing life by a committed cast led by Seyfried, carries \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> a long way. But a wholly unexpected element puts the film over the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985685\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985685\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman and man on deck of sailing ship\" width=\"2000\" height=\"828\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/TTAL_SG_00063_v2_2000-1536x636.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Seyfried and Lewis Pullman journey to America in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Vincent Minnelli and Bob Fosse artfully demonstrated, music and movement — song and dance — are powerful vehicles for not only conveying deep emotions but enrolling audiences in leaps of joy and amazement and flights of mind. Daring to dare is the sentiment at the heart of a movie musical, and the quality that moviegoers respond to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> isn’t exactly a musical in the sense that the songs don’t tell the story. Fastvold and composer Daniel Blumberg (whose score for Fastvold and Corbet’s \u003cem>The Brutalist\u003c/em> won the Oscar last year) chose a dozen melodies from the Shaker hymnal archive, and Celia Rowlson-Hall choreographed a mix of individual and ensemble numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>These dances don’t just prevent \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> from succumbing to the stuck-in-wax fate of a lot of standard biopics and period pieces. They bring the magic, and the entrancement, without feeling anachronistic and pulling us out of the 18th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> is set in a world very different from ours and also not so different, a world of mysteries and dangers where people fear new ideas and are made to fear newcomers. Where superstitions or religious dogma or conspiracy theories are cited to soothe our uncertainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps every utopian endeavor is fated to come to an end, whether from internal dynamics or external forces. Maybe our task is to take inspiration from the faith and the effort. \u003cem>The Testament of Ann Lee\u003c/em> asks us to consider whether we are on the side of the creators or the destroyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ opens Jan. 23, 2026 in Bay Area theaters.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Rooting for the underdog, on the field or in a movie, is one of America’s greatest traditions. You can trace it all the way back to our time-honored, tea-stained origin story of a ragtag band of farmers and shopkeepers taking on the British Empire. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13984386']\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> (opening Dec. 25), Josh Safdie’s beautifully crafted runaway train with an astonishing Timothée Chalamet as its pedal-to-the-metal engineer, turns the basic underdog dynamic, with all its brio and bravery and desperation and bullshit, into a feverish exposé of the fury and folly of the American Dream. If that isn’t your cup of mead, friend, what kind of patriot are you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh Safdie’s best films (\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13872331/uncut-gems-glittering-darkly\">Uncut Gems\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/08/11/542423079/stylishly-gritty-this-chase-thriller-really-is-a-good-time\">Good Time\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, co-directed with his brother Bennie, who also directed a sports movie on his own this year, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982077/smashing-machine-movie-review-mark-kerr-biopic-mma-dwayne-rock-johnson\">The Smashing Machine\u003c/a>\u003c/em>) center on men who know only one direction (forward) and one speed (faster). Are those protagonists (played by Adam Sandler and Robert Pattinson) and Marty running toward something or away from something? It’s a trick question, of course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blurry image of man running down busy city street with valise\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Timothée Chalamet in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is inspired by the late Marty Reisman, who titled his (ghostwritten) 1974 autobiography \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/moneyplayercon00reis\">The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. But we have no clue this skinny kid is an athlete when we are introduced to him in the early 1950s. He’s conning a customer in his uncle’s Lower East Side shoe store into buying the too-tight pair he’s passing off as her size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s too savvy to fall for Marty’s spiel — much of the tension in \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> derives from whether people will fold or stiffen in the face of his high-speed verbal onslaughts — but she’s instantly displaced by the arrival of a young woman who has some urgent footwear business with Marty that takes them downstairs to the storeroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em>’s early scenes, set in confined spaces, convey the claustrophobia driving its namesake to exceed the world’s expectations and escape the crummy, anonymous life everyone around him seems fated to. But we aren’t prepared for Marty’s lunatic ambition, and his off-putting brand of American exceptionalism in which he effortlessly shifts from hero to victim to suit his schemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000.jpg\" alt=\"black man and white man gesture over ping pong table in bowling alley\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985002\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyler, the Creator and Timothée Chalamet in a scene from ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We are both charmed by and leery of this showman, gambler and flamboyant self-promoter who, we come to see, is indifferent to the damage he leaves in his wake. If Marty is a kind of forerunner for larger-than-life competitors like Muhammad Ali, Evel Knievel, Pete Rose and John McEnroe, he’s also cut from the same cloth as the “pal” who borrowed your car and lied about the scratches and dents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most filmmakers would be content to highlight the working-class desolation of Marty’s milieu, and let the high-stakes drama of far-flung table-tennis tournaments and New Jersey bowling alley scams rivet the viewer. Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein bravely go further, repeatedly reminding us of Marty’s Jewishness in ways that are edgy and shocking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one scene, Marty cajoles fellow player Béla (Hungarian actor Géza Rohrig of the shattering 2015 concentration-camp saga \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/11241009/shallow-focus-creates-depth-of-feeling-in-son-of-saul\">Son of Saul\u003c/a>\u003c/em>) to reveal the tattooed numbers on his arm to a stranger. Later, on a trip to the Middle East, Marty shamelessly chips off a piece from a pyramid that he gifts to his mother with the line, “We built it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blond woman in hat looking up\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985003\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It isn’t enough for Marty to make some money, get his picture in the papers and travel abroad. Nor is it enough to capture the attention of a one-time movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow) with a rich husband. Sadly, he isn’t satisfied with success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If I were a lousy psychotherapist, I might see \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> as a Holocaust-revenge movie. Marty’s taking (back) what’s his (or what he sees as the Jewish people’s). The problem with that interpretation is that Marty directs his white-hot frenzy at anyone in his path, including erstwhile friends and supporters. He combines the ambition of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ADWjL42OGc\">Duddy Kravitz\u003c/a>, the zero-to-60 acceleration of the Roadrunner and the relentlessness of the Terminator with their accompanying lack of scruples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> is far and away one of the best movies of 2025, and its brilliant execution extends to the way it guides your feelings toward its anti-hero. There comes a point, sooner or later, where you will stop taking Marty’s side. You may even hope for his comeuppance, as I did. And then there’s a turn where Safdie and Chalamet will likely make you root for Marty again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>American movies typically encourage us to cheer for the underdog. \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> makes you question that simple loyalty, and ponder how much a child of immigrants who seeks to prove that the streets are paved with gold is allowed to get away with.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Rooting for the underdog, on the field or in a movie, is one of America’s greatest traditions. You can trace it all the way back to our time-honored, tea-stained origin story of a ragtag band of farmers and shopkeepers taking on the British Empire. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> (opening Dec. 25), Josh Safdie’s beautifully crafted runaway train with an astonishing Timothée Chalamet as its pedal-to-the-metal engineer, turns the basic underdog dynamic, with all its brio and bravery and desperation and bullshit, into a feverish exposé of the fury and folly of the American Dream. If that isn’t your cup of mead, friend, what kind of patriot are you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh Safdie’s best films (\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13872331/uncut-gems-glittering-darkly\">Uncut Gems\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/08/11/542423079/stylishly-gritty-this-chase-thriller-really-is-a-good-time\">Good Time\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, co-directed with his brother Bennie, who also directed a sports movie on his own this year, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982077/smashing-machine-movie-review-mark-kerr-biopic-mma-dwayne-rock-johnson\">The Smashing Machine\u003c/a>\u003c/em>) center on men who know only one direction (forward) and one speed (faster). Are those protagonists (played by Adam Sandler and Robert Pattinson) and Marty running toward something or away from something? It’s a trick question, of course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blurry image of man running down busy city street with valise\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Timothée Chalamet in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is inspired by the late Marty Reisman, who titled his (ghostwritten) 1974 autobiography \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/moneyplayercon00reis\">The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. But we have no clue this skinny kid is an athlete when we are introduced to him in the early 1950s. He’s conning a customer in his uncle’s Lower East Side shoe store into buying the too-tight pair he’s passing off as her size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s too savvy to fall for Marty’s spiel — much of the tension in \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> derives from whether people will fold or stiffen in the face of his high-speed verbal onslaughts — but she’s instantly displaced by the arrival of a young woman who has some urgent footwear business with Marty that takes them downstairs to the storeroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em>’s early scenes, set in confined spaces, convey the claustrophobia driving its namesake to exceed the world’s expectations and escape the crummy, anonymous life everyone around him seems fated to. But we aren’t prepared for Marty’s lunatic ambition, and his off-putting brand of American exceptionalism in which he effortlessly shifts from hero to victim to suit his schemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000.jpg\" alt=\"black man and white man gesture over ping pong table in bowling alley\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985002\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeScene_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyler, the Creator and Timothée Chalamet in a scene from ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We are both charmed by and leery of this showman, gambler and flamboyant self-promoter who, we come to see, is indifferent to the damage he leaves in his wake. If Marty is a kind of forerunner for larger-than-life competitors like Muhammad Ali, Evel Knievel, Pete Rose and John McEnroe, he’s also cut from the same cloth as the “pal” who borrowed your car and lied about the scratches and dents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most filmmakers would be content to highlight the working-class desolation of Marty’s milieu, and let the high-stakes drama of far-flung table-tennis tournaments and New Jersey bowling alley scams rivet the viewer. Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein bravely go further, repeatedly reminding us of Marty’s Jewishness in ways that are edgy and shocking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one scene, Marty cajoles fellow player Béla (Hungarian actor Géza Rohrig of the shattering 2015 concentration-camp saga \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/11241009/shallow-focus-creates-depth-of-feeling-in-son-of-saul\">Son of Saul\u003c/a>\u003c/em>) to reveal the tattooed numbers on his arm to a stranger. Later, on a trip to the Middle East, Marty shamelessly chips off a piece from a pyramid that he gifts to his mother with the line, “We built it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13985003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blond woman in hat looking up\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13985003\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/MartySupremeGwen_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It isn’t enough for Marty to make some money, get his picture in the papers and travel abroad. Nor is it enough to capture the attention of a one-time movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow) with a rich husband. Sadly, he isn’t satisfied with success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If I were a lousy psychotherapist, I might see \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> as a Holocaust-revenge movie. Marty’s taking (back) what’s his (or what he sees as the Jewish people’s). The problem with that interpretation is that Marty directs his white-hot frenzy at anyone in his path, including erstwhile friends and supporters. He combines the ambition of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ADWjL42OGc\">Duddy Kravitz\u003c/a>, the zero-to-60 acceleration of the Roadrunner and the relentlessness of the Terminator with their accompanying lack of scruples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> is far and away one of the best movies of 2025, and its brilliant execution extends to the way it guides your feelings toward its anti-hero. There comes a point, sooner or later, where you will stop taking Marty’s side. You may even hope for his comeuppance, as I did. And then there’s a turn where Safdie and Chalamet will likely make you root for Marty again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>American movies typically encourage us to cheer for the underdog. \u003cem>Marty Supreme\u003c/em> makes you question that simple loyalty, and ponder how much a child of immigrants who seeks to prove that the streets are paved with gold is allowed to get away with.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "best-movies-moments-films-2025",
"title": "The Best Movie Moments of 2025",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This week, we’re looking back on the best art, music, food, movies and more from the year. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/best-of-2025\">See our entire Best of 2025 guide here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The imperative of narrative films, indeed of all storytelling, is forward movement. Our insistent, perennial question is, “And \u003cem>then\u003c/em> what happened?” But “what” only matters if we care about “who,” and how they react and respond to what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters who stuck with me this year were on singular, propulsive journeys. They may have boarded a ship or hopped a train or ridden a spaceship, or stayed home and picked up a camera or a Ping-Pong paddle. They made unexpected and valuable discoveries, and I was glad to be along for the ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman on therapist couch, man taking notes beside her\" width=\"2000\" height=\"808\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984487\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-160x65.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-768x310.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-1536x621.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Conan O’Brien and Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.’ \u003ccite>(Logan White/A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982228/rose-byrne-astonishes-in-the-gripping-if-i-had-legs-id-kick-you\">If I Had Legs I’d Kick You\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mary Bronstein’s desperate portrait of a struggling mother (and therapist) on her own begins with an extreme close-up of Linda (Rose Byrne) not-so-calmly listening to \u003cem>her\u003c/em> therapist and young daughter. This intimate, uncomfortable sequence is the whole movie in a nutshell: The camera never strays far from Linda’s face, immersing us in the cascading pressures that threaten to submerge her. Linda’s trajectory is a downward spiral (physician, heal thyself!), but my therapist tells me it’s always darkest just before the dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984488\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000.jpg\" alt=\"two men pushing cart with concealed camera trail man and woman on parisian street\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1459\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984488\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-768x560.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-1536x1121.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg in ‘Nouvelle Vague.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983246/nouvelle-vague-movie-review-french-new-wave-linklater-on-godard-breathless\">Nouvelle Vague\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jean-Luc Godard was the last of his many film-critic peers to direct a feature film. That made the cocky auteur slightly insecure, yet he made zero concessions to his radical approach or compromises to his unique vision. Richard Linklater’s marvelous French-language, black-and-white recreation of the making of \u003cem>Breathless\u003c/em> in Paris in 1959 chronicles the many ways the artist willfully risked a fall. Like provoking a mid-day café brawl with his producer, a physical manifestation of the philosophical tensions between art and commerce, improvisation and script, inspiration and pragmatism. Vive la révolution du cinéma!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsga%CC%8Ard_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000.jpg\" alt=\"older man faces younger woman in front of hedge\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1202\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-1536x923.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve in ‘Sentimental Value.’ \u003ccite>(Christian Belgaux/NEON)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983315/sentimental-value-movie-review-joachim-trier-drama-stellan-skarsgard\">Sentimental Value\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Joachim Trier’s richly layered drama, the fight over artistic expression is a family affair. You might think that legendary filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) holds all the cards. However, his daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) is a drama queen. Really. She’s a phenom whose acute stage fright — which she shockingly invokes to make out backstage with the stage manager — threatens to derail the opening night of her latest buzzy play. Trier blurs and blots the line between art and life in this dramatic opening, setting the terms of Gustav and Nora’s relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984490\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000.jpg\" alt=\"seated young woman looks furtively to right\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chase Infiniti as Willa Ferguson in ‘One Battle After Another.’ \u003ccite>(Warner Bros. Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13981463/one-battle-after-another-movie-review-leonardo-dicaprio-paul-thomas-anderson-immigration-revolution-action\">One Battle After Another\u003c/a>‘\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Paul Thomas Anderson’s would-be SoCal epic is framed as a long-running grudge match between erstwhile revolutionaries and the military clampdown. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XEnTxlBuGo\">Which side are you on, which side are you on?\u003c/a>) Willa (Chase Infiniti), a mixed-race teenager of unambiguous innocence, is caught in the crossfire. In a rare quiet moment amid the battlefield chaos and cacophony, alone in a sun-blazed car while men fight over her, she peers through the shadows on the windshield and takes her life into her own hands. Now Willa’s journey truly begins, while everyone else keeps on running in circles over the same old ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman with shaved head and white cream on skin sits on bed, hands bound\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984491\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emma Stone as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia.’Focus Features release. \u003ccite>(Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982740/bugonia-movie-review-emma-stone-jesse-plemons-yorgos-lanthimos\">Bugonia\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>High-powered biotech CEO Michelle (Emma Stone) isn’t on a journey so much as a mission. But it isn’t apparent until Michelle has been kidnapped and chained in a mad conspiracy theorist’s basement. Abused, humiliated and covered in blood, Michelle refuses to be a victim for even a nanosecond. Stone’s commitment to frequent collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos is extraordinary, notably in the moment her face hardens into a mask of fearless fury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000.jpg\" alt=\"white man holds axe, looks up at massive tree\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983447/train-dreams-review-movie\">Train Dreams\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Looking straight down on a green Pacific Northwest forest, we watch a branch inexorably fall from a great height onto a man. Is it random bad luck? God’s mighty hand? Nature’s way of avenging the violence that loggers do to trees? Or the accidental handiwork of another laborer? Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), the simple protagonist of Clint Bentley’s meditation on the effects of 20th-century progress on one individual, grapples as best he can with these and other questions. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blurry image of man running down busy city street with valise\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Timothée Chalamet in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Marty Supreme’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Table-tennis hotshot/shoe salesman Marty Mauser’s manic drive to escape the shabby New York confines of his 1950s existence is, essentially, one battle after another. Here’s one: Dead-set on flying to London for a major tournament, the perpetually broke Marty (Timothée Chalamet) forces a co-worker at gunpoint to open the safe so he can take his “back pay.” Josh Safdie’s astonishing film is a nonstop barrage of extreme moments. Alas, for all his sound and fury, Marty ain’t going nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"people in 18th-century clothes raise arms together on ship deck\" width=\"2000\" height=\"828\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984494\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-1536x636.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Seyfried and ensemble in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘The Testament of Ann Lee’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mona Fastvold’s entrancing recreation of the Shaker religious movement contemplates the utopian aspirations of faith. In a turning point in the English sect’s development, its single-minded leader Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) declares that its future is in the New World. En route, a mid-Atlantic storm threatens the ship. Lee and her followers commandeer the deck for ecstatic prayer, braving the rain and the jeers of the disbelieving crew. On a rough and uncertain journey, it is helpful to be accompanied by your God, or a strong director. Some would say they are the same thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Eight scintillating scenes from (some of) the year’s most compelling cinematic journeys.",
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"title": "The Best Movie Moments of 2025 | KQED",
"description": "Eight scintillating scenes from (some of) the year’s most compelling cinematic journeys.",
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"headline": "The Best Movie Moments of 2025",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This week, we’re looking back on the best art, music, food, movies and more from the year. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/best-of-2025\">See our entire Best of 2025 guide here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The imperative of narrative films, indeed of all storytelling, is forward movement. Our insistent, perennial question is, “And \u003cem>then\u003c/em> what happened?” But “what” only matters if we care about “who,” and how they react and respond to what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters who stuck with me this year were on singular, propulsive journeys. They may have boarded a ship or hopped a train or ridden a spaceship, or stayed home and picked up a camera or a Ping-Pong paddle. They made unexpected and valuable discoveries, and I was glad to be along for the ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman on therapist couch, man taking notes beside her\" width=\"2000\" height=\"808\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984487\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-160x65.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-768x310.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/LEGS04_Courtesy-of-A24_2000-1536x621.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Conan O’Brien and Rose Byrne in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.’ \u003ccite>(Logan White/A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982228/rose-byrne-astonishes-in-the-gripping-if-i-had-legs-id-kick-you\">If I Had Legs I’d Kick You\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mary Bronstein’s desperate portrait of a struggling mother (and therapist) on her own begins with an extreme close-up of Linda (Rose Byrne) not-so-calmly listening to \u003cem>her\u003c/em> therapist and young daughter. This intimate, uncomfortable sequence is the whole movie in a nutshell: The camera never strays far from Linda’s face, immersing us in the cascading pressures that threaten to submerge her. Linda’s trajectory is a downward spiral (physician, heal thyself!), but my therapist tells me it’s always darkest just before the dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984488\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000.jpg\" alt=\"two men pushing cart with concealed camera trail man and woman on parisian street\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1459\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984488\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-768x560.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/NOUVELLE_VAGUE_n_00_50_48_21_2000-1536x1121.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg in ‘Nouvelle Vague.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983246/nouvelle-vague-movie-review-french-new-wave-linklater-on-godard-breathless\">Nouvelle Vague\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jean-Luc Godard was the last of his many film-critic peers to direct a feature film. That made the cocky auteur slightly insecure, yet he made zero concessions to his radical approach or compromises to his unique vision. Richard Linklater’s marvelous French-language, black-and-white recreation of the making of \u003cem>Breathless\u003c/em> in Paris in 1959 chronicles the many ways the artist willfully risked a fall. Like provoking a mid-day café brawl with his producer, a physical manifestation of the philosophical tensions between art and commerce, improvisation and script, inspiration and pragmatism. Vive la révolution du cinéma!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsga%CC%8Ard_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000.jpg\" alt=\"older man faces younger woman in front of hedge\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1202\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/SentimentalValue_Renate_Reinsve_Stellan_Skarsgård_Photo-Christian-Belgaux_2000-1536x923.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve in ‘Sentimental Value.’ \u003ccite>(Christian Belgaux/NEON)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983315/sentimental-value-movie-review-joachim-trier-drama-stellan-skarsgard\">Sentimental Value\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Joachim Trier’s richly layered drama, the fight over artistic expression is a family affair. You might think that legendary filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) holds all the cards. However, his daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) is a drama queen. Really. She’s a phenom whose acute stage fright — which she shockingly invokes to make out backstage with the stage manager — threatens to derail the opening night of her latest buzzy play. Trier blurs and blots the line between art and life in this dramatic opening, setting the terms of Gustav and Nora’s relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984490\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000.jpg\" alt=\"seated young woman looks furtively to right\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/rev-1-OBAA-20250623_High_Res_JPEG_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chase Infiniti as Willa Ferguson in ‘One Battle After Another.’ \u003ccite>(Warner Bros. Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13981463/one-battle-after-another-movie-review-leonardo-dicaprio-paul-thomas-anderson-immigration-revolution-action\">One Battle After Another\u003c/a>‘\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Paul Thomas Anderson’s would-be SoCal epic is framed as a long-running grudge match between erstwhile revolutionaries and the military clampdown. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XEnTxlBuGo\">Which side are you on, which side are you on?\u003c/a>) Willa (Chase Infiniti), a mixed-race teenager of unambiguous innocence, is caught in the crossfire. In a rare quiet moment amid the battlefield chaos and cacophony, alone in a sun-blazed car while men fight over her, she peers through the shadows on the windshield and takes her life into her own hands. Now Willa’s journey truly begins, while everyone else keeps on running in circles over the same old ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000.jpg\" alt=\"woman with shaved head and white cream on skin sits on bed, hands bound\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984491\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/08_4243_D012_00172_R_rgb_2000-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emma Stone as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia.’Focus Features release. \u003ccite>(Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982740/bugonia-movie-review-emma-stone-jesse-plemons-yorgos-lanthimos\">Bugonia\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>High-powered biotech CEO Michelle (Emma Stone) isn’t on a journey so much as a mission. But it isn’t apparent until Michelle has been kidnapped and chained in a mad conspiracy theorist’s basement. Abused, humiliated and covered in blood, Michelle refuses to be a victim for even a nanosecond. Stone’s commitment to frequent collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos is extraordinary, notably in the moment her face hardens into a mask of fearless fury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000.jpg\" alt=\"white man holds axe, looks up at massive tree\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Train_Dreams_u_00_43_38_15_R_2000-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983447/train-dreams-review-movie\">Train Dreams\u003c/a>’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Looking straight down on a green Pacific Northwest forest, we watch a branch inexorably fall from a great height onto a man. Is it random bad luck? God’s mighty hand? Nature’s way of avenging the violence that loggers do to trees? Or the accidental handiwork of another laborer? Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), the simple protagonist of Clint Bentley’s meditation on the effects of 20th-century progress on one individual, grapples as best he can with these and other questions. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg\" alt=\"blurry image of man running down busy city street with valise\" width=\"2000\" height=\"838\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-768x322.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/r3_1.1.1_2000-1536x644.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Timothée Chalamet in ‘Marty Supreme.’ \u003ccite>(A24)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Marty Supreme’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Table-tennis hotshot/shoe salesman Marty Mauser’s manic drive to escape the shabby New York confines of his 1950s existence is, essentially, one battle after another. Here’s one: Dead-set on flying to London for a major tournament, the perpetually broke Marty (Timothée Chalamet) forces a co-worker at gunpoint to open the safe so he can take his “back pay.” Josh Safdie’s astonishing film is a nonstop barrage of extreme moments. Alas, for all his sound and fury, Marty ain’t going nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000.jpg\" alt=\"people in 18th-century clothes raise arms together on ship deck\" width=\"2000\" height=\"828\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984494\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-768x318.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/TTAL_SG_00067_v2_2000-1536x636.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Seyfried and ensemble in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee.’ \u003ccite>(Searchlight Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘The Testament of Ann Lee’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mona Fastvold’s entrancing recreation of the Shaker religious movement contemplates the utopian aspirations of faith. In a turning point in the English sect’s development, its single-minded leader Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) declares that its future is in the New World. En route, a mid-Atlantic storm threatens the ship. Lee and her followers commandeer the deck for ecstatic prayer, braving the rain and the jeers of the disbelieving crew. On a rough and uncertain journey, it is helpful to be accompanied by your God, or a strong director. Some would say they are the same thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "‘Train Dreams’ Is a Mesmerizing Portrayal of a Working Man’s Life",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em>, Clint Bentley’s impressionistic adaptation of Denis Johnson’s much-loved 2011 novella, takes us on a woodsy trek through an ordinary working man’s life. Strewn with revelatory moments, it’s a sincere and enthralling effort to mine the grit, gravity and mystery of life for nuggets of profundity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the low-key saga of everyman Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the 20th century, \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> (released Friday, Nov. 7 in theaters and Nov. 21 on Netflix) invites us to set aside our cynicism about both the movies and the real world. The payoff is a rush of unexpected emotions rarely experienced in movie theaters, and one of the most rewarding films you will see this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983463\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is less a chronological narrative than a poem in shards, conjuring the subjective and ephemeral nature of memory, nightmares, love and grief in a way that may put you in mind of Terrence Malick’s later works. The film largely operates outside of time; we rarely know what year it is (thanks to Will Patton’s note-perfect narration), while the rural settings elide markers like period clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is Robert — a blank slate, a tabula rasa, who doesn’t even know where he came from (his parents died when he was very young and he was sent to live with strangers). Without background or baggage, this innocent foundling grows up to be, basically, two strong hands propelled by an understanding that food requires work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert has a rudimentary moral code, though little education (it occurred to me a couple days later that Grainier might not know how to read) and no discernible ambition or destination. Early in the film, though already in his 30s, he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones), who possesses enough initiative and direction for both of them. Indeed, she saw and chose him, rather than Robert courting her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in ’Train Dreams.’\u003cbr> \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gladys and their daughter, Kate, quickly become the center of his world, the powerful magnets drawing him home from his seasonal work felling trees. They build a house some distance from town, with no other people in sight. Robert has a purpose now, and a joy he’d never known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em>, which debuted at Sundance and premiered locally a month ago in the Mill Valley Film Festival, is an art film, comprised of carefully composed shots of the natural world, about a man with no conception of art. This isn’t ironic so much as intentional: The point of the piece is that even the life of an anonymous, forgotten human being with no special talent or world-changing accomplishment — our lives, say — is festooned with miracles and grandeur and depth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert can appreciate natural beauty, along with the danger in nature, though he usually needs someone to call his attention to it. The philosophical explosives expert Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) with whom Robert crosses paths in the forests most years, serves that function. (Macy is one of the film’s defining pleasures; his various affectations seem to emanate from his love for his character rather than a character actor’s impulse to steal scenes).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William H. Macy in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Arn’s ruminations extend to (what we would call today) the sustainability of natural resources and the wages of progress, but director and co-writer Bentley (\u003cem>Jockey\u003c/em>) is judicious in his social critique. You don’t have to be an environmentalist or Social Democrat to comprehend Robert’s universe. A simple man who makes his living with his hands and just wants to be left alone to raise a family (the character, in conjunction with Robert Redford’s passing, reminded me of the taciturn protagonist of the 1972 Western \u003cem>Jeremiah Johnson\u003c/em>), Robert has several of the characteristics of a MAGA supporter, in fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> isn’t a political film by any stretch, but at times it plays like a meditation on national existential questions: Is America’s past a dream to those living in the present? Is the American dream, well, a dream? Is life a dream?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13982977']You will parse the meaning and ponder the themes of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> in accord with your own experiences and worldview, of course. For those who work in offices, commute in cars and live in centrally heated and cooled houses, Robert’s rugged outdoorsman may be a bridge too far. So I have a suggestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vast majority of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> unfolds outside or in very close proximity. It is an elemental film, as in earth, air, fire and water. (Fire isn’t metaphorical for Robert, nor for Bay Area viewers who recall the Oakland firestorm or Paradise conflagration.) That’s one reason it should be seen in a theater: You should enter and depart the world of the film via the outdoors, in a reality not entirely within your control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you do wait and stream \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> at home, take a walk around your neighborhood before settling down to watch. Listen. Breathe in. Take another stroll outside after the film; your ears will be even more attuned to ambient sounds. (Do I need to advise you to silence your phone and keep it in your pocket? Land sakes, man.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert comes to see that he isn’t going to gain wisdom through his experiences, or more control over his world. The truth sets him briefly and gloriously free. \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is a mesmerizing opening through which to contemplate the passage of time, the significance of love and (dare I say it) the meaning of life. \u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Train Dreams’ is in theaters Friday, Nov. 7 and on streaming Friday Nov. 21.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em>, Clint Bentley’s impressionistic adaptation of Denis Johnson’s much-loved 2011 novella, takes us on a woodsy trek through an ordinary working man’s life. Strewn with revelatory moments, it’s a sincere and enthralling effort to mine the grit, gravity and mystery of life for nuggets of profundity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the low-key saga of everyman Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the 20th century, \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> (released Friday, Nov. 7 in theaters and Nov. 21 on Netflix) invites us to set aside our cynicism about both the movies and the real world. The payoff is a rush of unexpected emotions rarely experienced in movie theaters, and one of the most rewarding films you will see this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983463\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/TRAIN_DREAMS_u_00_08_55_07_R2-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is less a chronological narrative than a poem in shards, conjuring the subjective and ephemeral nature of memory, nightmares, love and grief in a way that may put you in mind of Terrence Malick’s later works. The film largely operates outside of time; we rarely know what year it is (thanks to Will Patton’s note-perfect narration), while the rural settings elide markers like period clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is Robert — a blank slate, a tabula rasa, who doesn’t even know where he came from (his parents died when he was very young and he was sent to live with strangers). Without background or baggage, this innocent foundling grows up to be, basically, two strong hands propelled by an understanding that food requires work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert has a rudimentary moral code, though little education (it occurred to me a couple days later that Grainier might not know how to read) and no discernible ambition or destination. Early in the film, though already in his 30s, he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones), who possesses enough initiative and direction for both of them. Indeed, she saw and chose him, rather than Robert courting her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Sundance_TRAIN-DREAMS-RGB-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in ’Train Dreams.’\u003cbr> \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gladys and their daughter, Kate, quickly become the center of his world, the powerful magnets drawing him home from his seasonal work felling trees. They build a house some distance from town, with no other people in sight. Robert has a purpose now, and a joy he’d never known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em>, which debuted at Sundance and premiered locally a month ago in the Mill Valley Film Festival, is an art film, comprised of carefully composed shots of the natural world, about a man with no conception of art. This isn’t ironic so much as intentional: The point of the piece is that even the life of an anonymous, forgotten human being with no special talent or world-changing accomplishment — our lives, say — is festooned with miracles and grandeur and depth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert can appreciate natural beauty, along with the danger in nature, though he usually needs someone to call his attention to it. The philosophical explosives expert Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) with whom Robert crosses paths in the forests most years, serves that function. (Macy is one of the film’s defining pleasures; his various affectations seem to emanate from his love for his character rather than a character actor’s impulse to steal scenes).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_25_08_03_R-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William H. Macy in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Arn’s ruminations extend to (what we would call today) the sustainability of natural resources and the wages of progress, but director and co-writer Bentley (\u003cem>Jockey\u003c/em>) is judicious in his social critique. You don’t have to be an environmentalist or Social Democrat to comprehend Robert’s universe. A simple man who makes his living with his hands and just wants to be left alone to raise a family (the character, in conjunction with Robert Redford’s passing, reminded me of the taciturn protagonist of the 1972 Western \u003cem>Jeremiah Johnson\u003c/em>), Robert has several of the characteristics of a MAGA supporter, in fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> isn’t a political film by any stretch, but at times it plays like a meditation on national existential questions: Is America’s past a dream to those living in the present? Is the American dream, well, a dream? Is life a dream?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>You will parse the meaning and ponder the themes of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> in accord with your own experiences and worldview, of course. For those who work in offices, commute in cars and live in centrally heated and cooled houses, Robert’s rugged outdoorsman may be a bridge too far. So I have a suggestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vast majority of \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> unfolds outside or in very close proximity. It is an elemental film, as in earth, air, fire and water. (Fire isn’t metaphorical for Robert, nor for Bay Area viewers who recall the Oakland firestorm or Paradise conflagration.) That’s one reason it should be seen in a theater: You should enter and depart the world of the film via the outdoors, in a reality not entirely within your control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Train_Dreams_u_00_36_46_11_R-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joel Edgerton in ‘Train Dreams.’ \u003ccite>(Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you do wait and stream \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> at home, take a walk around your neighborhood before settling down to watch. Listen. Breathe in. Take another stroll outside after the film; your ears will be even more attuned to ambient sounds. (Do I need to advise you to silence your phone and keep it in your pocket? Land sakes, man.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert comes to see that he isn’t going to gain wisdom through his experiences, or more control over his world. The truth sets him briefly and gloriously free. \u003cem>Train Dreams\u003c/em> is a mesmerizing opening through which to contemplate the passage of time, the significance of love and (dare I say it) the meaning of life. \u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Train Dreams’ is in theaters Friday, Nov. 7 and on streaming Friday Nov. 21.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"onourwatch": {
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
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