Has summer been beating down on you yet? It’s nearing that time of the season when hiding in an air-conditioned room, theater, or living room is the ideal. I wish theaters had more options this weekend, but we do have Tom Hardy and Austin Butler battling in an accent-off, and June Squibb riding around on a scooter, so we can’t complain too much. Then there’s a couple of documentaries to chill off with at home about the sweaty sport of tennis and some Barbie girls. Enjoy the movies and TV. —Savannah Salazar
Featured Presentations
.
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols’s bike-club drama is parking it in theaters about six months after The Bikeriders was originally due to be released. Starring (a ton of accents from) Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer, the film follows the fictional Vandals MC motorcycle club, headed up by Hardy, as they devolve into a life of crime. The movie pulls from the real history of the Chicago Outlaws and is based on the book of the same name by Danny Lyons, played in the film by one-third of the Challengers throuple, Mike Faist. —S.S.
➽ We could’ve had a Bikeyoncé December, but they chickened out.
.
Federer: Twelve Final Days
With tennis still top of mind, I’m sure, you may be interested in watching the documentary on the now-retired tennis champion Roger Federer. The documentary, directed by Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia, depicts Federer’s final days on the court with access never before given because, apparently, Federer was planning for this to just be a “home video.” Sure. —S.S.
➽ Unfortunately, there’s no throuple in this.
.
Thelma
At 94, June Squibb is finally a leading lady. The actress stars as a chaotic grandma out for revenge after falling prey to a phone scam. You probably recognize her from supporting roles in Alexander Payne films and her Pixar voicework (she’s also in theaters as Nostalgia in Inside Out 2 right now), but Thelma is Squibb in gleeful focus. —Eric Vilas-Boas
➽ Squibb’s death in About Schmidt? Forever seared into my brain.
.
Black Barbie: A Documentary
Shondaland is on a roll right now. First Bridgerton, now there’s Black Barbie, a documentary on the creation and release of the first Black Barbie doll in the 1980s. Spanning across decades, the film focuses on the legacy of that decision through the three Black Mattel employees, Beulah Mae Mitchell, Kitty Black Perkins, and Stacey McBride Irby, who have shepherded these changes. —S.S.
The One-Sentence Review
Kinds of Kindness
“Yorgos Lanthimos can now reclaim his throne as our reigning cinematic poet-king of serial humiliation.” (Now in theaters, read more here.)
.
Ghostlight
Go see this one cold! That’s what Bilge Ebiri says, anyway, in a review that called Ghostlight, out in a wider release today after a more limited run last weekend, “one of the best movies of the year.” So far 59 critics have assembled to give directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s film a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. —E.V.B.
Genre Fare
Orphan Black: Echoes
Krysten Ritter feels like an underrated TV commodity. She can be wry, cunning, and pitiable all at once, which should serve her well as the lead in Orphan Black: Echoes, a spinoff of the 2013 original series with Tatiana Maslany that required an array of modes from its star. Set nearly 40 years after its predecessor, Echoes focus on a woman questioning whether a young woman she meets might be a version of herself. —Roxana Hadadi
Vulture Recommends
Kelly’s Heroes
There are more canonical Donald Sutherland movies: Don’t Look Now (free on Pluto), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (up on Prime Video), Pride & Prejudice (rentable), The Hunger Games (AMC+), the list of 200-plus credits goes on. But there’s only one movie in which he plays an anachronistic hippie tank commander named Sgt. Oddball. In Kelly’s Heroes, an Allied squad hunts for Nazi gold — and after it enlists Sutherland’s tank unit, he handily steals scenes from costars Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas. Released in 1970 a few months after M*A*S*H (also rentable!), it’s an early showcase of Sutherland’s devil-may-care charm and comic timing. As bombs explode, Oddball raises a bottle: “I’m drinking wine and eating cheese.” Here’s to him. —E.V.B.
➽ And here’s Matt Zoller Seitz on Sutherland, “one of the best to ever do it.”
Rewatchables
The Brat Pack filmography
Hulu’s got several Brat Pack movies rolled up in a collection this month, or so it claims. Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire are there, and “Celebrating the Brat Pack” does indeed celebrate individuals named in its new doc Brats, but I would hardly call Say Anything … or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Brat Pack movies. Notably, they do not have my favorite and the canonical best of the bunch, The Breakfast Club (currently doing time in Netflix detention). All the same, if you want an ’80s coming-of-age movie night, you could do worse. —E.V.B.
➽ And for the anime fans, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence in vibrant 4K.
Want more? Read our recommendations from the weekend of June 14.
