\u201cThe Vast of Night,\u201d<\/a> a 1950s sci-fi mystery made on a shoestring budget. With more resources and more movie stars in tow, Patterson scales up his vision, bringing his closest collaborators along and delivering one of the most surprising and original movies of the year: a rollicking, bluegrass-fueled slice of quirky Southern pulp. <\/p>\nIt\u2019s immersive, character-driven and stylish; a spiky, enjoyable piece of filmmaking that is wholly distinctive and hasn\u2019t had all its personality sanded down, the kind of movie you could recommend to anyone. The same could be said about this summer\u2019s \u201cTuner,\u201d also produced and distributed by Black Bear, which is making a name for itself as a studio backing these kinds of \u201cthey don\u2019t make them like they used to\u201d movies.<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King,\u201d the moment with the queen bee is when the film transitions from its wild, wacky \u2014 but intentional \u2014 world-building into a sleek Southern noir. Amziah hands off the honey plant to Kateri as McConaughey, the Oscar-winning movie star, hands off the film to newcomer LookingGlass in her very first movie role.<\/p>\n
Each half of the film reflects the character it follows, the first part frenetic, densely packed and bursting with music. Kateri\u2019s section is quieter and methodical like its central hero, who slips undetected among this community to sow her chaos and reap her revenge. But the second half requires the first to function properly. We need to know this hive and the bees that inhabit it in order for it all to make sense, to feel right, and Patterson makes sure the table is properly set, every detail a dish offering something different but necessary for the meal to satisfy, like the community potluck that Amziah walks Kateri through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Vast of Night\u201d was marked by its epic long takes, courtesy of cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz, who also shoots \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King\u201d with a sun-dappled sense of naturalistic beauty and thoughtful close-ups. But this film\u2019s logic lies in the edit, starting and ending with a stop-start stutter motif that jars us into this world of a small Oklahoma town, where a bluegrass band jams in a restaurant parking lot.<\/p>\n
Patterson and editor Patrick J. Smith interweave scenes of intrigue and shocking violence, take liberties with Amziah\u2019s storytelling asides and give us barn-burning musical sequences. With a large ensemble cast, everyone gets their due, including Kurt Russell as late-arriving big agriculture antagonist Dob McCoy. But even the baddie gets a fully fleshed-out tale.<\/p>\n
Structurally, \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King\u201d is a strange and expectation-defying film, a sort of shaggy weird hangout movie that starts as a small-town caper and morphs into a western revenge picture about the nuances of outlaw justice. But its heart remains in the right place, thanks to McConaughey\u2019s raw, soulful performance. This is a familiar, lived-in mode for him as an actor (especially in the latter part of his career) as a wily, almost feral good old boy.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s something sweeter about this version of McConaughey and it\u2019s due in large part to his performance opposite LookingGlass, who bears a quiet magnetism onscreen and capably shoulders her portion of the story. The title might declare itself concerned with the rivals of Amziah King, but they\u2019re a red herring \u2014 this is really about the reign of Kateri.<\/p>\n
Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.<\/p>\n
‘The Rivals of Amziah King’<\/p>\n
Rated:<\/b> R, for language and some grisly images<\/p>\n
Running time: <\/b>2 hours, 10 minutes<\/p>\n
Playing:<\/b> Opens Friday, Aug. 14 in wide release<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a moment in \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King\u201d where Amziah (Matthew McConaughey) details the different kinds of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[269025,39652,269027,18,117,597,234339,19,17,269026,58875,269029,327,9433,269028,75070,49886,13051,92538,269030],"class_list":["post-636675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-amziah-king","tag-bee","tag-different-kind","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-hive","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kateri","tag-mcconaughey","tag-more-movie-star","tag-movies","tag-night","tag-original-movie","tag-patterson","tag-queen","tag-rivals","tag-vast","tag-worker-bee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117093591039627258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}