Sure, it’s Monday, but it’s never too early to Thank God It’s Friday. That’s the message from GloRilla with the latest single “TGIF” off her album Ehhthang Ehhthang. She’s been barnstorming the country with Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot Girl Summer tour, and it’s been super hot.
The new video, directed by Jerry Morka and produced by Diesel Filmz is a classic tour video. Glo and her girls show off her tour bus, party in some swank locales, and dazzle enormous audiences. And they twerk. A lot.
The video is already a smash hit, currently #3 on YouTube’s music video charts with 13.4 million views and counting. Go Glo!
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Maika Monroe wonders what it all means in Longlegs. (Courtesy Neon)
Looks like a busy weekend at the movies — which is good, because it’s gonna be a hot one.
Longlegs
The great Nicholas Cage stars as a serial killer motivated by his devotion to Satan. Maika Monroe (of It Follows fame) is Lee Harker, an FBI agent assigned to catch him. Blair Underwood (of Krush Groove fame) is her partner, and Alicia Witt (of Dune and Twin Peaks fame) is her mom. Writer/director Osgood Perkins is not super famous yet, but his dad is Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame.
Fly Me To The Moon
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star as NASA’s PR director and launch director for the Apollo 11 mission. His job is to get the astronauts to the moon. Her job is to fake the moon landing if the astronauts fail. This film probably sounded like a good idea at the time.
MaXXXine
Ti West and Mia Goth’s trilogy of twentieth century terror concludes with a slam-bang finale. Read my full review.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Lupita Nyong’o leads this hit prequel to 2018’s alien invasion movie. She plays Sam, a terminally ill cancer patient who witnesses the silent alien invasion in New York City. Can Sam and her cat Frodo survive the mass slaughter? Djimon Housou reprises his role as Henri from AQuiet Place Part II.
Despicable Me 4
You know those oval yellow Minons your batty aunty and drunk uncle are always sharing memes about? They’re from the Despicable Me franchise. And guess what? They made another one!
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone follow the Academy Award-winning Poor Things with a triptych of stories about debasing yourself for the benefit of others. Read my full review.
Inside Out 2
The movie of the summer is all about anxiety, and it couldn’t be more timely. Amy Poehler reprises her voice role as Joy, whose hold on the mind of her 13-year-old charge Riley (Kensington Tallman) is jarred loose by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), just a a pivotal hockey game threatens her self image.
The Bikeriders
Director Jeff Nichols’ gritty portrait of Midwestern biker gangs stars Austin Butler and Tom Hardy looking mighty manly. Read my full review.
Mia Goth reprises her role as aspiring actress Maxine Minx, while Kevin Bacon joins the cast as a sleazy PI. (Photos: Courtesy A24)
In 2022’s X, the first of the three-film collaboration between director Ti West and actor Mia Goth, a newbie film crew descends on a Texas farmhouse intending to make a porn flick. Instead, they become the latest victims of Pearl (Goth, in heavy makeup), an elderly woman who bears a strong resemblance to Norman Bates’ mother in Psycho. Only Maxine Minx (Goth, au naturel) escapes the carnage.
In MaXXXine, our eponymous heroine actually visits the Bates Motel — the real one, which still stands on the Universal back lot. She’s there because her Hollywood dreams have begun to come true. But the past just won’t let her go. As Faulkner said, it’s not even past.
West and Goth’s collaboration began on the set of X, when the backstory she had developed for the killer granny Pearl so impressed the director that he decided to make it a prequel. Pearl goes deep into the oppressive patriarchy of rural Texas in the 1920s that twisted a young girl’s ambition into a murderous psychosis. Sixty years later, you can see the same ambition burning in Maxine. It’s 1985, and she’s made it as a porn star in the Valley, the porn industry’s dark mirror image of Hollywood. Now she wants to go legit and get parts in “real” movies, which are filmed on the side of the Hollywood Hills where you can see the big sign.
When she strides into an audition with director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki), it’s clear she’s got the juice. She slays her monologue from memory, conjuring tears on demand, which impresses the stoic director. Then, Bender asks Maxine if she would take off her shirt so they could see her tits. Not a problem, says Maxine. Later that day, Maxine gets a call from her agent Teddy (Giancarlo Esposito). She got the part. Now she just has to live long enough to make the movie.
This is more challenging than it might sound. The Night Stalker serial killer is taking victims in Southern California, and dominating the headlines. When Maxine goes to what is hopefully her last day on the job at the peepshow, she’s followed by a mysterious figure in a wide-brimmed hat. After work, her friends Amber (Chloe Farnworth) and Tabby (Halsey) invite her to a big party in the Hollywood Hills, but Maxine declines. She’s got to learn her lines, and it won’t do to show up to her first day on the set with a hangover. It looks like she made the right choice when Amber and Tabby’s bodies are found wrapped in plastic and branded with Satanic pentagrams.
Is it the Night Stalker? Maybe. But there’s more weirdness floating around. Maxine gets a lunch invitation at a swanky restaurant from a man named Labat (Kevin Bacon). He’s a private investigator who has been hired to find Maxine and threatens to frame her with the murders, which have become known as the Texas Porn Star Massacre, unless she goes to meet his client at a swanky address in the Hollywood Hills. Meanwhile, two LAPD detectives, Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Torres (Bobby Cannavale), come calling. They’ve noticed that Maxine seems to be the only person who knows all of the recent victims of the Night Stalker, but who is not yet dead. They offer her protection if she will talk. But they don’t understand who they’re dealing with. Maxine doesn’t need protection. She’s got dreams, a good agent, and her trusty pearl-handled pistol.
Mia Goth’s performances in X and Pearl were the revelation of a major new talent. In MaXXXine, she’s a cocaine-powered whirlwind of ruthless ambition. If she has to kill a few people to see her name in lights on the marquee, then people will die. This might not seem like the makings for a sympathetic character, but her enemies are so much worse. Kevin Bacon drips with sleaze as the utterly amoral private dick sent to retrieve Maxine. When he follows her into a strobe-lit New Wave club where Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” throbs through the sound system, the film shifts into overdrive. From there, West keeps the pedal to the metal.
In true Hitchcock fashion, MaXXXine’s gonzo climax takes place in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. Ti West has studied Hitch and his disciple Brian De Palma’s early-’80s run of erotic thrillers like Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, and Body Double. But MaXXXine is not a Tarantino pastiche of cool scenes from other people’s movies. There’s a difference between sampling and working in a mode. West and Goth transcend their influences. Yes, these films are in conversation with the past’s lowbrow classics, but they never lose sight of their primary mission: Make it kick ass.
If you’re like many Americans, you just got back from an Independence Day weekend getaway. Maybe you went to the beach, like Happie Hoffman did a few weeks back. The singer/songwriter was on a trip to a remote island in French Polynesia with a friend who was having a birthday. There, she performed to a small audience, which happened to include British director JP Miacallef.
“We were on this enchanting island, and after I performed JP had a vision for the video,” recalls Hoffman, who performs under the name HAPPIE. “Everyone was exhausted and ready for bed, but in that moment of collective excitement everyone all rallied together to make it happen. With just a few pieces of equipment and a lot of heart, we created something truly special; The love and support I felt was overwhelming.
“I wrote this song for my dad, inspired by how special moments in life are like flashes of a shooting star,” Happie says. “I hope it inspires you to hug your loved ones a little tighter and savor every beautiful moment.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
More than 20 years into his filmmaking career, we know what to expect from a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. There will probably be a cultish organization, with strange practices and unclear motives. The dialogue will sound simplistic on the surface, but conceal deeper meaning. The sex will be weird. There will be mutilation, often self-inflicted. Someone will get licked. Emma Stone will do a little dance.
And yet, Lanthimos’ films are always surprising. Even if you’ve seen everything he’s done, from his 2001 Greek debut My Best Friend to his 2009 breakthrough Dogtooth to last year’s masterpiece Poor Things, you’ll probably have no idea what will happen next when you watch Kinds of Kindness.
Lanthimos’ latest reunites key members of the Poor Things cast: Emma Stone, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Bella Baxter, the dead woman brought back to life after having the brain of her unborn child implanted in her skull, and Willem Dafoe, the mad scientist who did the deed. Joining them is Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie. Kinds of Kindness is divided into three parts: Each segment is its own isolated story, with the actors playing completely different characters. In “The Death of R.M.F.,” Plemons plays Robert, a corporate executive whose boss Raymond (Dafoe) issues daily memos which control every aspect of his life. When Robert is ordered to deliberately crash his car, he balks, and Raymond cuts him off. Unsure of what to do with his sudden freedom, Robert flails wildly.
In “R.M.F. Is Flying,” Plemons plays Daniel, a police officer whose wife Liz (Stone) is missing at sea. His partner Neil (Athie) tries to keep Daniel on track, but when Liz is rescued, his insanity only deepens.
In “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” Stone and Plemons play Emily and Andrew, a pair of cultists whose leaders Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau) have issued a prophecy about a woman with the ability to bring people back from the dead. It’s Emily and Andrew’s job to find her.
Kinds of Kindness delves into three isolated stories, with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and more playing different characters throughout.
Kinds of Kindness’ three segments may not have common characters, but they do have common themes. In each story, someone is rejected, either from a group or by an individual, and takes drastic action to try to get back into the fold. An obsession with control — who wields it, who is subject to it, who needs it — winds its way through the three stories. Stone, who has emerged as one of the best actresses of her generation, remains Lanthimos’ muse. Her three characters couldn’t be more different, and she is brilliant in all three roles. In the third segment, she even tries her hand at stunt driving.
Plemons’ talent shines throughout the film. In the first segment, his disorientation at having to make his own decisions after a decade of Dafoe dictating his every move is at first hilarious, then poignant, then horrifying. In “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” his vulnerability as a grieving husband gives way to a steely, destructive determination.
Dafoe, the consummate pro, works wonders with Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou’s often difficult material. In the hands of lesser actors, these stories might come off as silly. Filippou also co-wrote The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which means Kinds of Kindness is a different flavor from the visual extravagance of Poor Things. Instead of the fantastical steampunk cities of an alternate Europe, Kinds of Kindness was filmed on location in New Orleans. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan brings out the Crescent City’s threatening, surreal side.
As with all of Lanthimos’ films, this isn’t for everyone. But if you’re already on board with his unique, often disturbing world view, you will find Kinds of Kindness ranks with the director’s best work.
Kinds of Kindness is now playing at Studio on the Square and Collierville Cinema Grill & MXT.
“Songwriting for me is like entering a trance,” says RØA. “Of all of the music I’ve written, the songs I’m most proud of — I don’t really remember how they came about. I may recall the emotion or circumstance that compelled me to write, but the actual process of writing the song always escapes me.”
RØA, aka Jasmine Roach, recorded their debut EP, which will be released on September 20, at Young Avenue Sound. “Comfortable,” the first single, features recording engineer Dane Giordano on bass and Thomas Lamm on drums. The song was mixed and mastered with additional production by RØA and Jay Particular at Unkewl Sound.
RØA says “Upon listening to “Comfortable” the first couple of times, I was convinced it was a love song, as this would be the most obvious reflection of my being at that time, or so I thought. As I’ve grown more familiar with the song however, I realize that it’s more of an internal chant, an invitation to the deepest parts of myself. And this inner voice evokes a kind of initiation into a realm of more authentic expression, embodied by the phrase, ‘I just wanna make you comfortable.’”
Best Actress winner Emma Stone stars in Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness. (Courtesy Searchlight Pictures)
There’s plenty of great stuff on the big screen in Memphis, so quit doomscrolling and go see a movie this weekend.
Kinds of Kindness
Best Actress winner Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and director Yorgos Lanthimos reunite for another absurdist comedy after the triumph of 2023’s Poor Things. They are joined by Jesse Plemons (whose performance earned him a Best Actor nod at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival), Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau for a triptych of intertwined stories about love, death, and healing.
A Quiet Place: Day One
The third film in the series goes back to the beginning, which is the end of civilization. Blind space monsters with extremely sensitive hearing land on Earth and start eating up all the tasty people. That’s not so yummy for Lupita Nyong’o, a New Yorker who witnesses the invasion, and must escape very quietly. But don’t worry, she’s got a plan.
Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1
Kevin Costner directs Kevin Costner in this epic tale — a saga if you will — of American expansion in the West during the pre- and post-Civil War period. Expect horses, hats, and guns from this highly punctuated title.
Inside Out 2
This brilliant sequel is the biggest box office hit of the year. Head emotion Joy (Amy Poehler) must keep her human Riley (Kensington Tallman) on track as the ravages of puberty take hold, and a new emotion named Anxiety (Maya Hawke) arrives at headquarters. Beautifully animated with stealthily profound screenplay, Inside Out 2 is a must-see. (Read my full review, which, spoiler alert, borders on the rapturous.)
Kalki 2898 AD
Malco has been getting a lot of Indian movies over the last couple of years. This one promises to be different. It’s not a Bollywood song-and-dance film, as much as we love them. Kalki 2898 is the most expensive film ever made in India, weighing in at an impressive $6 billion rupees (approximately $72 million). It’s a sci fi epic inspired by Hindu mythology which is intended to kick off a Marvel-style cinematic universe. And it looks pretty cool.
Sexy guys in leather and charismatic performances make this biker flick hypnotically fun to watch.
In the 1950s-1960s, the motorcycle picture was its own genre. During the postwar years, as military-trained mechanics demobbed into civilian life, motorcycle clubs sprang up all over the country. Some of these guys, combat vets who had developed a taste for Army Air Corps-issued amphetamine pills, were pretty rough customers. Their leather outfits and roaring chrome steeds made the bikers irresistible to the camera. In 1953, The Wild One, a story about the conflicted leader of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, made a superstar out of Marlon Brando. In the 1960s, Russ Meyer and Roger Corman made biker movies a cornerstone of their no-budget empires, launching the careers of folks like Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Jack Nicholson, and John Cassavetes. The genre hit its apex when Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider became a generation-defining hit in 1969.
Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders aims to resurrect the biker movie and take it to the art house. It’s based on a book of photography by Danny Lyon, who rode with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club from 1963 to 1968. He appears in The Bikeriders, played by Challengers’ Mike Faist, with camera and bulky tape recorder always in tow. Danny’s interviews with biker wife Kathy (Jodie Comer) provide the framework for Nichols’ unconventional story.
Kathy’s husband is Benny (Austin Butler), who is the right-hand man to Johnny Davis (Tom Hardy), the founder of the Vandals, the fictionalized version of the Chicago-based Outlaws. Nichols tells his story in layered flashbacks, adding details as Kathy remembers them. The Vandals were a regular old club of guys racing dirt bikes until Johnny saw The Wild One and decided that was boring. What are we going to do, asks his friend Brucie (Damon Herriman), sit around and talk about motorcycles?
“That’s what we do anyways,” says Johnny.
There’s a little more to it than that. They also drink truckloads of booze and fight, both other biker gangs and each other. Despite the fact that he has a day job as a truck driver and a suburban house with a wife and kids, Johnny maintains control of the organization through violence. If you challenge his leadership, you have to fight him. He wasn’t the biggest one, but he was the meanest one, says Kathy. Big Jack (Happy Anderson) finds this out the hard way.
Johnny surrounds himself with weirdos who share his motorbike obsession. There’s the aforementioned Brucie, whose red hair makes him look like someone squished Conan O’Brien. Cockroach (Emory Cohen) is called so because of his diet. Make of that what you will. Michael Shannon is Zipco, a Lithuanian immigrant who rails against “the pinkos.” When he tried to volunteer to go to Vietnam, he was rejected as an “undesirable,” and he’s still sore about it.
Then there’s Benny. He’s a man of uncomplicated pleasures. His mere smoldering presence is enough to break up relationships. And most importantly, he can take a lot of punishment in a fight. The film opens with Benny getting his ass decisively kicked for refusing to take off his colors. By the late ’60s, the Vandals’ reputation was such that the guys stopped wearing their leather jackets and denim vests unless they were in a group, fearing they would get jumped if caught by a rival gang alone. Everyone, that is, except Benny. His devotion to the club borders on the fanatical, a fact that is not lost on Johnny, who is looking for a successor. But as the ’60s progress, embittered veterans of the Vietnam War join the rapidly expanding club. They have a taste for more and harder drugs, and the motorcycle club gives them a ready-made smuggling and distribution infrastructure. Johnny’s generation were middle-class poseurs pretending to be Marlon Brando. The new breed took the bravado far too seriously.
Nichols and his cinematographer Adam Stone shoot the bikers like mythical figures, which, in a way, they are. But the actual characters are anything but mythical. This film is exceptional for what his bikers don’t do. They don’t plan a heist or go on a killing spree. One minute, they’re brawling with a rival gang; the next, the enemies are having beers and telling stories around the campfire. Their most dangerous habit is riding without a helmet. But a helmet would interfere with Austin Butler’s superb haircut, and we certainly can’t have that. For a film starring a bunch of sexy guys in leather, The Bikeriders is surprisingly chaste. Benny and Kathy never do much more than cuddle. For all its pretensions to realism, like Kathy’s extravagant Chicago accent, the film feels sanitized. Thanks to a clutch of charismatic performances, it’s still hypnotically fun to watch. It might even inspire you to jump on a motorcycle. Just don’t ride without a helmet.
Memphis’ own musician/producer Mark Edgar Stuart has a new album, Never Far Behind. It was produced by Will Sexton at Bruce Watson’s Delta Sonic Studio. The first single is the floaty, melancholy “Until My Dying Day.” The music video, which was produced and directed by Landon Moore, takes us to some visually interesting locations in Memphis, like the stage of the Crosstown Theatre.
“I’ve had this song in my pocket for a long time,” says Stuart. “It’s a song for my mom. A song of reflection, gratitude, and joy. A simple ditty, repetitive and catchy, almost like a nursery rhyme. I just wanted her to have no problem understanding the sentiment. It could also be about a father, daughter, a friend, or even a sweetheart. It’s your song now.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Jodie Cormer and Austin Butler ride bikes in The Bikeriders. (Courtesy Focus Features)
It’s hot, and you need to be in an air-conditioned movie theater. Lucky you, the lineup is stacked this week.
The Bikeriders
Arkansan Jeff Nichols, who is brother to Lucero frontman Ben Nichols, directs Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, and Jodie Comer in this biker gang epic. The Vandals MC began in the 1960s as a simple club for outcasts who like to ride. Over time, the organization slowly evolves into a dangerous organized crime syndicate. Can the original founders turn things around before the law cracks down?
The Exorcism
Russell Crowe stars as an actor who is playing a priest in a movie that looks a lot like The Exorcist, but for legal reasons is not. When he starts to see real demons, his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) suspects he’s using drugs again. But the truth is much more complicated.
Inside Out 2
Pixar’s latest is the biggest hit since Barbie, breaking the box office cold streak that has had some predicting the death of the theatrical experience. Well, turns out all you have to do get people in seats is make a great movie and market it properly. Who knew? Read my rapturous review in this week’s Memphis Flyer.
Time Warp Drive-In: Odd Noir
On Saturday, June 22, see three Coen Bros. masterpieces under the stars at the Malco Summer Drive-In: The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and No Country for Old Men. “Nobody fucks with the Jesus.”
