The New Bauhaus
*** You probably don’t know the name László Moholy-Nagy. You wouldn’t be familiar with his paintings, and the Hungarian-born artist’s experimentalist photography and kinetic sculptures ended up more influential than iconic. Odds are, you’ve never even heard of the school for industrial design he founded, or the boundary-shattering curriculum he installed, but the subsequent creations of his students (Dove’s ergonomic soap bar, James Bond’s trippily louche credit sequences, the Playboy bunny logo, the honey bear) would help shape 20th century iconography and aesthetics. This 2019 documentary by Alysa Nahmias, director behind award-winning 2011 Cuban art school paean Unfinished Spaces, follows Moholy-Nagy from a teaching post at Weimar-era Germany’s legendary Bauhaus through his efforts to re-create the modernist mecca’s ideals within a corporate-sponsored Chicago institute. A brisk, engaging portrait of a restless polymath and beloved educator, The New Bauhaus provides a textured overview of a fascinating life that takes pains to illuminate the subject’s interdisciplinary flights of fancy. Nevertheless, with so much packed into the 89-minute running time, uninitiated audiences hoping to learn more about, say, the artist’s aborted dalliances with cinema (devising special effects for an H.G. Wells collaboration) or the military (disguising Lake Michigan from enemy bombers) may grow frustrated by the sheer breadth of digressions zipped past, however chicly. Form follows function, to be sure, but less isn’t always more. NR. JAY HORTON. Apple TV, Google Play, Vimeo.
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The Boss Baby: Family Business
*** The Boss Baby was about a talking baby in a business suit and a conspiracy to create the world’s cutest puppy. Improbable as it may seem, the story of The Boss Baby: Family Business is even more bizarre. DreamWorks Animation may have adapted it from a children’s book, but the innocent days when the studio chronicled the exploits of a gassy, lovelorn ogre are over. Family Business reintroduces the Templeton brothers (voiced by James Marsden and Alec Baldwin), who are de-aged by the enigmatic cabal known as Baby Corp. so they can spy on Dr. Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum), a baby prodigy plotting to usurp the reign of parents worldwide. “Unfortunately, the world isn’t ready for a baby in a position of power—yet,” Armstrong drawls. Goldblum revels in the role so palpably that you practically see his sly smirk projected across the screen. He knows the movie is ridiculous, and so does director Tom McGrath, who loads the plot with hallucinogenic reveries, like musical notes inexplicably floating through the cosmos. Far out! Some parents may worry Family Business is priming their kids to light a joint and a lava lamp, but moviegoers of all ages should enjoy basking in the film’s sheer strangeness. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cinema 99, City Center, Classic Mill Plain, Cornelius, Division, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Peacock, Pioneer Place, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.
F9
*** Vin Diesel is a lovably goofy badass, but he isn’t the hero of the Fast & Furious franchise. That honor belongs to Justin Lin, the hot-shot director who solidified the series’ brand: deranged automotive action and devotion to the belief that if all of humanity could barbecue with Diesel, the world would know peace. Lin keeps the faith in F9, a sequel that satisfies despite signs of wear and tear that have multiplied during the franchise’s 20-year reign at the multiplexes. Dom Toretto (Diesel) returns to battle his grouchy brother Jakob (John Cena), a rogue government agent hunting for a MacGuffin best described as a fancy soccer ball with apocalyptic potential. The action isn’t so clever or coherent as the merry mayhem Lin unleashed on Tokyo and Rio in previous Fast & Furious films, but the sweet camaraderie between Dom and his loyal cronies (including Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson and Christopher Bridges) endures. Best of all, F9 brings back Han (Sung Kang), an avatar of superhuman coolness who was apparently killed in an exploding Mazda several movies ago. When someone wonders how Han survived, he politely tells them to shut the fuck up and live in the moment. That’s good advice for anyone who goes to see F9. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 99, City Center, Classic Mill Plain, Cornelius, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Regal Movies On TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.
Summer of Soul
*** Someone who attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of free concerts held in Mount Morris Park in the summer of 1969, referred to it as “the ultimate Black barbecue.” That’s as good a description as any considering the celebratory vibe created by organizer Tony Lawrence and the more than two dozen artists—Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Moms Mabley and former Temptation David Ruffin, among them—who performed at the event. Despite the estimated 300,000 attendees, the festival has been all but ignored in the wake of Woodstock, which went down weeks later. Questlove, founder of hip-hop ensemble the Roots, is jogging the world’s collective cultural memory with his directorial debut, Summer of Soul. Built from a wealth of footage captured at the Harlem Cultural Festival for a New York television station, this documentary perfectly contextualizes the event by weaving in news clips from the time and contemporary interviews with attendees and performers. But the true draw is seeing the kings and queens of R&B, funk, jazz and gospel, all of them at the peak of their considerable careers. They poured every ounce of themselves into their performances that summer and will be blowing minds anew thanks to this fantastic film. PG-13. ROBERT HAM. Cinema 21, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Hollywood, Hulu, Vancouver Mall.
Black Widow
** Scarlett Johansson plays a Marvel superhero in Black Widow, but she’s fiercer by far in spandex-free films like Lost in Translation and Marriage Story. She doesn’t seem to get a kick out of being an action star, and Black Widow isn’t much of an action movie—it exists mostly to fill the narrative gap between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, two similarly mediocre Marvel films. Black Widow unites Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) with her punkish sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh). They want to annihilate the Red Room—the Russian brainwashing program that tried to turn them into soulless assassins—but they can’t succeed without the help of Melina and Alexei (Rachel Weisz and David Harbour), the sinister agents who once posed as their parents during an undercover operation. Director Cate Shortland’s poor pacing strips the story of suspense, but the most troubling thing about Black Widow is its eagerness to forgive Melina and Alexei, who condemned Natasha and Yelena to become child soldiers. Black Widow may be a feminist film, but its brand is diet feminism for moviegoers who thought the complete overthrow of the patriarchy in Mad Max: Fury Road was overkill. Maybe that’s why Johansson looks bored—she knows Black Widow isn’t worth believing in. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Disney+, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, Movies on TV, St. Johns Theater & Pub, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Tigard.
Summertime
** Carlos López Estrada’s spoken-word musical and ode to grassroots Los Angeles arrives right on time for this season of rediscovering our cities in existentially hungry, all-day bursts. Seek truth in good company and open air, advises Summertime. With dashes of Short Cuts and Do the Right Thing, plus a deep thumbprint from Estrada’s 2018 debut, Blindspotting, Summertime loosely trails more than 20 Angelenos across one surreal day, idealizing L.A. not toward perfection but for its street-level beauty and collectivism. The servers, cashiers, limo drivers and aspiring rappers (played by real-life L.A. poets) lift each other’s underestimated spirits much the way Estrada’s warm, dappled visuals suggest a golden hour that lasts half the day. In a word, though, the slam-poetry interludes are jarring. For these exhalations, Summertime practically freezes while one ensemble character (whom we scarcely know) pours the contents of their soul into the lap of another who has no choice but to listen, stunned by this impromptu performer. There’s no disputing the artistry, just whether the grand experiment actually works—whether full-throated, showstopping acts of testimony cohere within an otherwise casual, often charming summer stroll. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Fox Tower.
The Tomorrow War
** Hollywood has fully embraced the genre of Big Budget, Doomsday, Alien movies chasing the tail of Independence Day ever since it came out 25 years ago. The formula is a basic mix of plug-in big-ticket actors with CGI monsters and “clever” world-building. In this vein, we have The Tomorrow War, directed by Chris McKay. The film delivers on the adrenaline-pumping action and impending danger around every corner on par with every other film of this ilk. Perhaps too on par. The Tomorrow War plays out like an alien action movie mixtape as it shamelessly steals from every film in its genre, from Aliens to Starship Troopers. If you find you enjoy these films’ predictable but fun structure, then this movie should adequately satisfy and entertain. But if you’re looking for any semblance of depth and character study, you’ll probably be left feeling frustrated by the emptiness in this bloated display of unending clichés and “Oh, my God” moments (not the good kind). Chris Pratt may not have been the best choice to carry the emotional weight the script asks for as his co-stars act circles around him in every dramatic scene. If you cast Pratt, then let him run with the sardonic humor the film is begging for and his onscreen persona delivers so well. But please don’t ask him to actually act. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Amazon Prime.