STRANGE DARLING. That a movie like this (not that I can say I've ever seen one) should exist, much less be available in theaters in a remote little outpost like ours, speaks to something promising in the business of American movies. Pardon the optimism.
I've joined my voice to the chorus of lamentation about the state of cinema more frequently than I care to remember, sure. But lately, in this "post-pandemic," post-Barbenheimer, post-strike, pre-apocalypse we call reality, I've found surprisingly frequent occasion to celebrate what we have and what is upcoming. Inspiration seems to be finding the air and light of commercial support, little movies with big ideas are finding their way to the multiplex, and it almost feels like we might be entering another fertile era for creatives unchained to franchise juggernauts and over-rushed, underthought cash-grabs. But I wouldn't want to go all Pollyanna, it's bad for my street cred.
Loath as I am to intone the work on another as a point of entry or comparison, it's only fair to say I've been thinking about Pulp Fiction (1994) lately. We're approaching the 30th anniversary of its release and the attendant shockwaves it sent through culture at large. Which also means it's been three decades since I, in adolescence, pressured my family to go see the thing in the theater and changed our lives forever. It's cliché filmbro nonsense to point to Pulp as a watershed in one's cinema education. But some things become clichés because they have lasting resonance, and even though I am among a generation of cis white males who were aroused and awakened by Tarantino's lurid pastiche of reference and humor, I reveled then, as I do now, in the notion that a movie could be a complete and immersive experience of the mind of a creator. Until that point, fascinated as I may have been by the medium, and even in a fumbling way by the process of how movies are made, I saw the finished product as something apart from that process, and edifice of artifice that must have, at some point, been conceived entire and cohesive.
Pulp Fiction, though, was and is a movie that doesn't hesitate to show its work: The references demand seeking out, but it's clear (clearer now) that it is a work of synthesis, of reference, homage and plagiarism rendered as new. The creator's inimitable method, focus and experience led to a couple of decades of piss-poor imitations, shoot-em-ups with the occasional clever turn of phrase or cheeky, monologue-driven relationship pieces, but none of them, at least to my recollection, ever rose to true originality.
Which is a long walk to get to Strange Darling but there's a reason. That reason being: this movie is the first one in 30 years that struck me as an heir to the creative impulse of Pulp Fiction that lifts nothing, parrots nothing and certainly does not attempt anything grandiose. It is, rather, a beautiful and inspired trip through a certain cinematic underbelly, a rural, killer-on-the-road thriller that, in its self-awareness and clarity of vision, transcends its reference points and becomes something distinctly and gloriously its own.
To say more than that it is, as the title card informs, a thriller in six chapters (albeit nonlinear ones), would do a true disservice to a simple plot that, through manipulations of our expectations and cinematic points of view, plunges through variations on theme and explorations of deviance with a wanton but carefully planned exuberance.
The second feature from JT Mollner and astoundingly photographed by Giovanni Ribisi — yes, that Giovanni Ribisi — Strange Darling is a serial killer adventure with roots in the past and the suggestion of something exciting in the future. Bloody and beautiful, rough-hewn where appropriate and acted with remarkable alacrity by stars Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner, it is both an acknowledgement of the inspirations of the past and, for those of a certain stripe, a bold and hopeful look into the future. R. 96M. BROADWAY.
BLINK TWICE has been promoted more heavily, stars Channing Tatum and is the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz; it hardly needs my accolades. But, like Strange Darling, it is a deeply rewarding, frequently surprising, delicately paced work that could be ruined by synopsis.
Quite directly a treatise on the abuse of power (there's a trigger warning for content before the opening credits), the fallacy of forgiveness and the "gift" of forgetting, Blink Twice succeeds in being intensely topical but also timeless. A satisfying mélange of horror, comedy and social commentary, it has in it as much Bunuel as Breillat, but is very much its own new creation. There are within it unspeakable acts of violence and subjugation, depictions of grotesque but tantalizing luxury in a world of immeasurable disparity and, of course, men behaving very, very badly. Not everybody gets what they deserve, exactly, but most do. R. 102M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
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ALIEN: ROMULUS. Do you want chest-bursting, face-hugging, acid-bleeding Xenomorphs? Because colonizing space is how we get chest-bursting, face-hugging, acid-bleeding Xenomorphs. R. 119M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.
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THE FORGE. Inspirational drama about a rudderless young man who finds a mentor and God. PG. 124M. BROADWAY.
INSIDE OUT 2. All the feels are back in this animated sequel, now with Anxiety! PG. 96M. BROADWAY.
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REAGAN. Dennis Quaid stars in a biopic that looks like it's going to trickle down. PG13. 135M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
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WHERE OLIVE TREES WEEP. Hosted by Shine a Light on Palestine with Humboldt for Palestine, panel discussion to follow the film. NR. 104M. MINOR.
For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.