{"id":864471,"date":"2026-06-13T12:08:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/864471\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T12:08:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:08:38","slug":"jim-jarmuschs-tough-as-nails-ghost-dog-plus-the-weeks-best-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/864471\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Jarmusch’s tough-as-nails ‘Ghost Dog,’ plus the week’s best films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello! I\u2019m Mark Olsen<\/a>. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.<\/p>\n

We toss around a lot of talk about film formats around here \u2014 this is showing in 70mm, that will be showing in 4K, etc. \u2014 a conversation that is about to get even louder as \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d approaches.<\/p>\n

Which makes it extra fun that the New Beverly Cinema<\/a> is going to be showing Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s best-picture-winning \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d<\/a> later this week in a new 35mm print. Wait, you might be saying to yourself, didn\u2019t that movie just come out? And you would be correct.<\/p>\n

Though it was shot in VistaVision<\/a> and a limited number of theaters could show the film in either that format or 70mm, there actually weren\u2019t any 35mm screenings. So this is a rare chance to knock one more format off your punch card. It\u2019s just such a thrill that local film lovers get to drill down this far into their own nerdiness, obsession and sense of completism.<\/p>\n

Is it really a different experience in the different formats? Your mileage may vary, but there\u2019s fun finding out.<\/p>\n

More Michael Mann \"A <\/p>\n

Tom Noonan in Michael Mann\u2019s \u201cManhunter,\u201d now in a director\u2019s cut.<\/p>\n

(Rialto Pictures)<\/p>\n

Even as audiences eagerly await his long-promised \u201cHeat 2,\u201d Michael Mann continues his recent run of appearances around town with his older films, providing rousing events for local audiences.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mann will be at the Academy Museum to unveil the world premiere of what is being billed as \u201cMichael Mann\u2019s Manhunter: The Final Cut,\u201d<\/a> a new 4K restoration of his 1986 thriller. Mann\u2019s third feature, this is where his filmmaking took on a true supercharge, leaping ahead in style and intensity.<\/p>\n

An adaptation of the novel by \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs\u201d author Thomas Harris, the film follows a retired FBI serial-killer profiler (William Petersen), who, in attempting to stop a new murderer (Tom Noonan), must reengage with his nemesis, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox).<\/p>\n

The movie will also open in theaters on July 24. Reviewing the original release<\/a>, Sheila Benson called it \u201cferocious \u2026 a dark locomotive of a film, roaring straight ahead, dragging its audience with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The revenge of the misfits \"Several <\/p>\n

Jared Harris, center, as Andy Warhol in the movie \u201cI Shot Andy Warhol.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Janus Films)<\/p>\n

Though 2000\u2019s \u201cAmerican Psycho\u201d is the film for which director Mary Harron is best known, that\u2019s because her debut fiction feature, 1996\u2019s \u201cI Shot Andy Warhol,\u201d has been largely out of circulation for years. With the murky rights issues that have befallen many \u201990s indies cleared up, the film is ready to be rediscovered by a new generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen movie history gets written, if people aren\u2019t seeing things, then you\u2019re written out,\u201d says Harron, 73, during a recent call from her apartment in Brooklyn. Among the producers on the film is Christine Vachon<\/a>, who just this week was announced as an upcoming recipient of the academy\u2019s prestigous Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. The restored \u201cI Shot Andy Warhol\u201d will be playing locally at the Nuart Theatre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film stars Lili Taylor in a persuasive performance as Valerie Solanis, the woman best known for the 1968 incident in which she shot and severely wounded artist Andy Warhol. Without excusing her actions, Harron\u2019s film explores Solanis\u2019 place as a misfit even within the outsider world of the 1960s NYC underground art scene.<\/p>\n

Depicting her friendship with the trans actress Candy Darling (a sensitive turn by Stephen Dorff), the story portrays how Solanis came to write her notorious SCUM Manifesto (an acronym for the Society for Cutting Up Men) and the spiral of rejection that led to her desperate act of violence.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Lili Taylor in the movie \u201cI Shot Andy Warhol.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Janus Films)<\/p>\n

New, younger audiences may better respond to the film\u2019s depiction of gender and identity. When \u201cI Shot Andy Warhol\u201d was originally released, the conversation largely focused on Warhol and the scene around the Factory.<\/p>\n

\u201cSymbolically, that was such an apt pairing, two outsiders: Valerie, who dressed like a boy and had this rebelliousness about gender, and then Candy, who was also trying to rebel but in a very feminine way,\u201d says Harron. \u201cThey both were trying to defy the future that had been mapped out for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project has its roots in London, where Harris was living. One day she saw Solanis\u2019 \u201cSCUM Manifesto\u201d in the window of a bookstore and bought a copy, reading it voraciously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just like a lightning bolt,\u201d the filmmaker says. \u201cIt affected me so profoundly. I so wanted to direct but just couldn\u2019t see a way to get the chance. And I was in my 30s, and I felt like, oh, my life is slipping away. And I think it just hit both my feelings about sexism in society and my own frustration. Her analysis was so devastating of how women behave, how men behave. And I thought, OK, this woman\u2019s a genius. Everyone said she was just a crazy person. And I\u2019m going to tell her story somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tearing down Hollywood \"A <\/p>\n

Julianne Moore in the 2014 movie \u201cMaps to the Stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Caitlin Cronenberg \/ eOne Films)<\/p>\n

The pairing of director David Cronenberg<\/a> and writer Bruce Wagner resulted in a truly demented portrait of Hollywood, the 2014 movie \u201cMaps to the Stars,\u201d<\/a> starring Robert Pattinson as a limo driver, Julianne Moore as a fading actress and Mia Wasikowska as a young woman hoping to have revenge on the whole city. A bizarro cousin to \u201cMullholland Drive,\u201d the movie has a strange, singular energy all its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaps\u201d will play on Sunday at Brain Dead Studios<\/a> co-presented by Mezzanine and the local literary magazine \u201cThe Big One.\u201d Wagner will be there in person to introduce the film.<\/p>\n

In a 2014 profile<\/a> by The Times\u2019 Jeffrey Fleishman, Wagner spoke his frequent use of Los Angeles as a psycho-geography of anxiety, insecurity and general bad vibes. \u201cHollywood is a laboratory for need and vanity,\u201d he offered. \u201cThe knives are always out, and I\u2019m often holding them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A return to a lost New York \"A <\/p>\n

David Brisbin in the movie \u201cNo Picnic.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Film Desk)<\/p>\n

One of the rediscoveries of the year is Philip Hartman\u2019s 1986 \u201cNo Picnic.\u201d Something of a post-punk neo-noir, the story is about a failed NYC musician turned jukebox serviceman (David Brisbin) in search of a woman he glimpses in a photograph. But the film is really a tour of a pre-gentrified East Village, full of low-key bars and cafes, run-down apartments, eccentrics and struggling artists. The film features small roles from musician Richard Hell and then-unknown actors Steve Buscemi and Luis Guzm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

Director Hartman co-owned NYC\u2019s venerable Great Jones Cafe \u2014 the famous bust of Elvis makes an appearance in the film \u2014 and would go on to co-found the still-going Two Boots Pizzeria. He made himself an undeniable part of the lore of the city his film celebrated. The movie has become an unexpected juggernaut at New York\u2019s Film Forum, held over week after week. It will be getting a single screening at the American Cinematheque<\/a>\u2019s Los Feliz Theater on Saturday night. Don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n

A groundbreaking road trip \"Two <\/p>\n

Silas Howard, left, and Harry Dodge in the movie \u201cBy Hook or By Crook.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Chloe Sherman \/ Altered Innocence)<\/p>\n

Groundbreaking for its depiction of trans and butch characters, the 2001 film \u201cBy Hook or By Crook\u201d is an engaging buddy-comedy road picture about two outcasts (played by writer-directors Silas Howard and Harry Dodge) who meet each other and try to find their way through the world. Joan Jett makes a memorable cameo.<\/p>\n

Howard, Dodge and producer Steak House will all be there for a 25th anniversary screening at Vidiots<\/a> on Tuesday, moderated by \u201cThe People\u2019s Joker\u201d<\/a> filmmaker Vera Drew. In a statement, Dodge explained the film\u2019s sustained relevance: \u201cBy making something nuanced from the inside, by refusing to oversimplify for expediency, the film manages to create different positive ways to talk about self-representation and signification in mass media, and to question (with nuance) monolithic notions of queer identity, reminding us that people experience identity in thousands of very personal, very particular, often philosophical ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Jim Jarmusch Sunday \"A <\/p>\n

Forest Whitaker in the 1999 movie \u201cGhost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Artisan Entertainment)<\/p>\n

Jim Jarmusch is one of our favorite filmmakers around here, in part because his movies are so richly rewarding on a rewatch. One that I initially underestimated but have since come to adore is 1999\u2019s \u201cGhost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,\u201d starring Forest Whitaker and a wrecking crew of gangster-film character actors in a story of an enigmatic hitman.<\/p>\n

Vidiots <\/a>will be showing the movie on Sunday in conjunction with Synth History as part of its \u201cIconic Score\u201d series. The film marked the first time that RZA from Wu-Tang Clan scored a film, and the music mixes crime-jazz allure, spaghetti Western drama and hip-hop beats for a truly unique sound.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cDown by Law,\u201d starring Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni and Ellen Barkin, will be showing in 35mm at the American Cinematheque\u2019s Los Feliz Theater<\/a> on Sunday afternoon. The timing should work out to get from one theater to the other for anyone so inclined.<\/p>\n

New this weekOne last thing\u2026 \"A <\/p>\n

Riz Ahmed, writer and star of \u201cBait,\u201d photographed at the Los Angeles Times in El Segundo in April.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

I am also co-host of the awards podcast \u201cThe Envelope,\u201d<\/a> and though it is the thick of Emmys season (and technically TV-related), I would still like to share with you, my film-loving friends, our latest episode featuring an interview with Riz Ahmed. He created and stars in the series \u201cBait,\u201d about the complications that arise when a little-known South Asian actor auditions to play James Bond.<\/p>\n

It is a particularly lively conversation, touching on a range of topics. Ahmed is unusually sharp regarding the industry and his evolving place in it. As he says at one point, \u201cThis is where it becomes a full-blown therapy session. I would say that there was a period of time when I was just really desperate to be in the room. And now I\u2019m in a place where I\u2019m really excited to try and build my own room.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello! I\u2019m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":864472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[42125,42126,1582,276,7652,42127,2882,42128,42129,21183,2961,224,2444,5337,42124,3196,6166,2433,637,103],"class_list":["post-864471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-barry-jenkins","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-david","tag-dead","tag-drama","tag-evil","tag-good-work","tag-killing","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-lovers","tag-movie","tag-series","tag-short-film","tag-times","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116742725109220213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}