Paramount and Universal
moving picture industry executives are rubicund thatthis weekend ’s releases ofWickedandGladiator IIcan provide a repetition of last summer ’s “ Barbenheimer ” box office miracle . Some have even , optimistically , nicknamed the future phenomenon “ Glicked . ”
It seems Hollywood ’s architectural plan for the future is the juxtaposition of film that are monumentally different in tone . It ’s a return to the “ double features ” that were once on a regular basis booked in America ’s theater . If you ’re looking for similarly incongruous twofold bills , look no further .
Paramount and Universal
‘Melancholia and Coronets’: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and Melancholia (2011)
Could anybody possibly watch Lars von Trier ’s authoritatively downbeat disaster film , Melancholia , without the addition of the lightest possibly palate cleanser ? My advice – startle with Robert Hamer ’s delightful Ealing Studios clowning from 1949,Kind Hearts and Coronets . It ’s about a low - born cad ( Dennis Price ) , heir to a dukedom , who sets out to mangle all of those above him in line for the title ( eight of them , to be exact , all played by a pre - Obi - Wan Alec Guinness in the role[s ] of a lifetime ) .
Then , primed with enough implike joyfulness to last you a week , you’re able to tackle von Trier ’s narration of a grim runaway bride ( a dead - eyed Kirsten Dunst ) who to the full welcomes the death of the human beings as it train to collide with a rogue major planet . These are two sharp distinct perspectives on death , to say the least .
Kind Hearts and Coronetsis available for rent onAmazon Prime Video , whileMelancholiais cyclosis onMax .
‘Between the Silence’: Between the Temples (2024) and Silence (2016)
Here we have a sorting of a communion wafer - and - matzah religious sexual union : director Martin Scorsese ’s deeply serious tale of Lusitanian missionaries in 17th - century Japan and Nathan Silver ’s fine Jewish semi - read-only storage - com . The motion is which to watch first – one could go chronologically or by “ Old Testament first , New Testament 2nd ” prescript .
On inherent aptitude , I ’d say set about withSilence , which engage , as its title would suggest , in the realm of conceal secrets . Between the Templescompletes the circle by concluding with a Shabbat dinner party scene at which secrets are revealed at such a breakneck pace as to give a 1600s Jesuit whiplash .
Between the Templesis useable for rent onYouTube , whileSilenceis streaming onPluto TV .
“Decembertown’: May December (2023) and Elizabethtown (2005)
TheA.V. Clubcritic Nathan Rabin coin the term “ Manic Pixie Dream Girl ” inhis review of Cameron Crowe’sElizabethtown , and while Crowe ’s paradigmatic 2000s amatory funniness is as wholesome and soul - filling as estimable chicken soup , it ’s hard to fault Rabin for his characterization of Kirsten Dunst ’s female leading as exist solely “ to instruct broodingly soulful vernal man to embrace life sentence . ”
Could there be a more wrenching departure from theElizabethtown/(500 ) Days of Summer - era depiction of women than Todd Haynes ’ masterfulMay December ? Julianne Moore plays Gracie , a former tabloid mark who , when she was 36 , sexually groomed a 13 - class - older to whom she ’s now hook up with 24 long time later . Natalie Portman recreate a Hollywood actress and Machiavellian operator who upends Gracie ’s house while she organize to play Gracie in a moving picture . No Dream Girls here , however Manic .
Elizabethtownmight be better to watch second , in this case , to safely reward sexual activity and passion as positive degree rather of formula for twisted melodrama .
May Decemberis streaming onNetflix , whileElizabethtownis streaming onParamount+ .
