A new look at ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ plus the week’s best movies in L.A.
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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Among this week’s new releases is “Materialists,” a romantic dramedy starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, written and directed by Celine Song, whose debut, “Past Lives,” was nominated for two Oscars, including best picture. Johnson’s beguiling screen presence, her languidly charged charisma, is put to full use as a professional matchmaker in NYC who finds her own cold calculations challenged when she finds herself struggling to decide between a wealthy, perfect-on-paper finance guy (Pascal) and a perpetually struggling actor ex-boyfriend (Evans).
I interviewed Song and Johnson together recently, talking to them about how the film is both a sleek and glossy modern take on the rom-com and also an interrogation of the form and what people want from romance.
“We’re not just showing up here to be in love and beautiful and get to be in a rom-com,” says Song. “We’re also going to take this opportunity to talk about something. Because that’s the power of the genre. Our favorite rom-coms are the ones where we get to start a conversation about something.”
For her part, Johnson has turned down many rom-com roles in the past, but found something different in Song’s screenplay.
“The complexities of all of the characters,” Johnson said of what made the project stand out. “The paradox. Everyone being confused about what the f— they’re supposed to do with their hearts. And what’s the right move? I found that very honest and I found it just so relatable.”
Amy Nicholson opens her review by focusing on the film’s lead, writing, “Dakota Johnson is my favorite seductress, a femme fatale of a flavor that didn’t exist until she invented it. … Onscreen, she excels at playing skeptics who are privately amused by the shenanigans of attaching yourself to another person. She shrugs to conquer. Which makes Johnson the perfect avatar for a time when it’s hard to commit or keep swiping right.”
‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ in 4K
On Friday the Academy Museum will present the North American premiere of a new 4K restoration of Milos Forman’s 1975 “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The film won five Oscars, including best picture, director and actor, and the screening will include a conversation with editors Richard Chew and Lynzee Klingman, speaking with Larry Karaszewski.
Based on the novel by Ken Kesey, the film tells the story of Randle McMurphy (Nicholson), who is committed to a mental institution instead of serving a prison sentence. McMurphy’s rebellious, anti-authoritarian spirit upends the strict order of the facility maintained by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, who also won an Oscar for her performance), as he comes to connect with some of the other inmates, many of whom are there voluntarily.
The Times’ original review at the time said that the film “is calculated to restore your faith in the discipline and the emotional effectiveness of inspired fine moviemaking.”
A February 1976 profile of Forman by Fiona Lewis found the filmmaker, already a two-time Academy Award nominee for his films made in Czechoslovakia, in a rented house in the Hollywood Hills anxiously awaiting the impending Oscar nominations.
“All these events, like film festivals and Oscars — it’s foolish to compare if this film is better than that film,” Forman said. “But on the other hand, why not? It’s like my child is the most beautiful in the world and the girl I love the best.”
Roberto Minervini retospective
The Acropolis Cinema screening series begins a retrospective of the Italian-born, U.S.-based filmmaker Roberto Minervini Friday night with the Los Angeles premiere of his 2024 film “The Damned” at 2220 Arts + Archives. The filmmaker will be there for a Q&A moderated by “Eephus” director Carson Lund.
Minervini won the directing prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for the movie, which follows a company of volunteer U.S. soldiers in the Civil War as they are sent to patrol a remote borderland. “The Damned” will also open at the Laemmle Royal on the June 20.
Minervini will be present for a screening at Brain Dead Studios on Saturday for the world premiere of a new restoration of his 2011 debut feature “The Passage.” Critic Peter Debruge will moderate the Q&A.
Then on Sunday, Minervini will be present for a Q&A moderated by critic Tim Grierson following a 10th anniversary screening of “The Other Side” at 2220 Arts + Archive. On June 23, there will also be a screening of Minervini’s 2018 film “What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire?” back at Brain Dead Studios.
Points of interest
‘Bring It On’ 25th anniversary in 35mm
Following the recent screening of Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides,” the Academy Museum will present another pivotal film in the career of Kirsten Dunst: a 25th anniversary 35mm screening of Peyton Reed’s “Bring It On.” Actors Jesse Bradford and Brandi Williams will be present for the event as well.
Displaying Dunst’s range, she stars as Torrance Shipman, the new captain of the cheerleading squad at her affluent suburban California high school. Torrance discovers that their championship routines have been stolen from the squad of a less privileged all-Black school. Reed, who went on to direct “Down With Love,” “The Break-Up” and Marvel’s “Ant-Man” movies, deftly balances teen comedy, emotional nuance and social satire with a spirited energy.
After calling it “a smart and sassy high school movie that’s fun for all ages” in his original review, Kevin Thomas noted how the film “has a light satirical touch, works up lots of laughter, but is not heavy-handed about Torrance and her squad taking cheerleading so seriously. Rather than lament how winning a cheerleading trophy seems vastly more important to the squad members than getting the grades that will get them into college, [screenwriter Jessica] Bendinger and Reed instead show us the likable Torrance and her pals receiving some unexpected life lessons.”
‘Christiane F.’ 4K restoration
On Friday, the American Cinematheque will launch a limited run of the new 4K restoration of Uli Edel’s 1981 “Christiane F.” Based on a nonfiction book, the story depicts a teenage girl, Christiane (Natja Brunkhorst), in West Berlin who falls in with a crowd of kids who introduce her to using hard drugs and she soon becomes a heroin addict, living a hardscrabble life on the streets. Featuring music by David Bowie, the film also includes a live performance by Bowie of the song “Station to Station.”
In a February 1982 review, Kevin Thomas wrote, “The makers of ‘Christiane F.’ apparently feel that it is sufficient to dramatize this hellish odyssey with the utmost realism, sparing us nothing, not the sickness, the brutality, the pain or the sheer sleaziness of their existence. But it isn’t, because they don’t reveal anything that many adults and teens don’t know well. … [The filmmakers] go for an unremitting grittiness so as not to seem unduly sensational or exploitative in the telling of Christiane’s story.”
‘Cobra Woman’ in 35mm
On Saturday afternoon at the Los Feliz 3, the American Cinematheque will present a 35mm screening of Robert Siodmak’s 1944 beloved cult object “Cobra Woman,” starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu in a tale of twin sisters, kidnapping and a remote island paradise. Author Alonso Duralde will be on hand to introduce the film and do a signing for his new book “Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film.”
In a program note for the screening, Duralde noted Susan Sontag’s influential essay “Notes on Camp,” adding “for a look at ‘pure camp,’ there’s no better place to start than the 1944 Maria Montez vehicle ‘Cobra Woman,’ a deliciously over-the-top exercise in exotica, colonial fetishization and general absurdity. (The trailer calls it ‘A Pagan Sensation!’) Montez stars as twin princesses — one good, one evil, both in love with strapping Jon Hall — in a tale that incorporates volcanoes, blowguns, Sabu, a forbidden dance of the snakes and a valuable stone that Montez memorably calls the ‘Cobra jool.’” The film was also said to be the favorite of filmmaker Kenneth Anger.
A February 1944 Los Angeles Times column by Hedda Hopper explored how Montez pursued stardom with shrewdly calculated verve, writing, “Outstanding among today’s feminine stars who have projected their personalities — and persons — to fullest advantage is Maria Montez. Two years ago this Latin-American bundle of nerve and determination struck Hollywood like a one-woman avalanche, announcing to Universal that she would be satisfied with nothing short of top-flight stardom and swamping the studio’s production office with demands for starring roles.”
‘Naked Lunch’ with Peter Weller
On Monday, Vidiots will show David Cronenberg’s 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” in 4K with star Peter Weller in attendance to sign his new book “Leon Battista Alberti in Exile.”
Rather than strictly adapt the book itself, Cronenberg used fragments and shards of its story and Burroughs’ own biography to craft a phantasmagorical take on the novel’s own creation: An exterminator, Bill Lee (Weller), flees New York for the Interzone after he accidentally shoots his wife (Judy Davis) and sets himself to writing.
In a review from December 1991, Peter Rainer wrote, “There are enough references to the novel, enough episodes and characters, to provide a glancing resemblance to the original. But mostly, Cronenberg jacks up his own career-long obsessions with glop and grunge and decay to fever pitch. It’s a movie for people who really dig Cronenberg’s mulchy fixations — and probably for no one else. … The ambi-sexual atmosphere carries a demonic charge that approximates Burroughs but, for the most part, Cronenberg was a lot closer to the Burroughs ethos in a film like ‘Videodrome’ than he is here.”
In a June 1992 profile of Cronenberg by Gene Seymour, the filmmaker, then 47, spoke about how he approached adapting a book many assumed to be unadaptable.
“I do think it’s paradoxical but true that, in order to be faithful to the book, you have to throw the book away,” said Cronenberg. “You have to betray it in order to re-create it for the screen. All the attempts I’ve seen of trying to be literally faithful to the book have been dismal failures and the reason is only that the two media are totally, totally different. Maybe it’s because I’m really ruthless. And totally arrogant.”
In a statement, Burroughs himself said, “I felt, and still feel, that David’s script is very true to his own Muse as a filmmaker, very consistent with the high level of artistry for which he is known.”
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