Summer blockbuster season is kicking off this month, and even if you missed out on IMAX tickets to "The Odyssey," there are plenty of alternatives to mark on your calendar. Wherever you live in our fair city, there is bound to be a cinematic event near you, and this month’s offerings are odysseys of their own, journeying deep underground, back decades in time, and through the minds of visionary directors past and present.
"Underland"
What is it that calls humans to plumb the underground? Back in 2019, writer Robert MacFarlane attempted to answer this question with his book "Underland: A Deep Time Journey," exploring the painted caves, skeleton-filled catacombs, and underground laboratories humans have used to expand our notions of life, death, and the universe around us. His book comes to life in the documentary "Underland," narrated by Oscar-nominated actress Sandra Hüller, in which camera crews descend to the depths of cave systems, mine shafts, and city sewers to capture stunning images of the world beneath our feet and chart the passage of “deep time.”
Angelika Film Center. Opens June 4. Q&As with director Robert Petit will follow screenings on June 4, 5, 6, and 7.
"Baby Invasion"
Filmmaker Harmony Korine tests the boundaries of cinema itself with "Baby Invasion," an experimental thriller structured like a first-person shooter video game in which a group of mercenaries, their faces digitally obscured by baby masks, embark on a drug-fueled crime spree, holding residents of mansions hostage, trashing a houseboat, and fighting giant CGI monsters. With relentlessly loopy visuals and a booming soundtrack from the electronic musician Burial, this is Korine at his most unhinged. "Baby Invasion" is playing at Roxy Cinema as part of their I Paused My Game to Be Here series.
Roxy Cinema, June 9, 10, 12
"Nuestra Escena: Punk Across Latin America"
Punk is far from dead, at least at BAM. The series Nuestra Escena: Punk Across Latin America is a veritable treasure trove of famous icons and underseen gems charting the history and influences of Latin America’s punk scene. Carolina Pfister’s "Viva Viva" follows São Paulo’s punk musicians navigating the Brazil of the early 2000s. Five Colombian teens use the music of resistance to overcome the fears of looming adulthood in "Los Nadie." Short films "Saicomania" and "María T-Ta" observe the rise of Peruvian punk. Fueled by youthful revolution and teetering political spheres, the rise and reign of Latin punk is immortalized in these documentaries and drama films following the music that defined a generation.
BAM Rose Cinemas, June 12-18
"I Shot Andy Warhol"
Newly restored in 4K for its 30th anniversary, director Mary Harron’s 1996 drama "I Shot Andy Warhol" stars Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist and author of the "SCUM Manifesto" who attempted to assassinate Warhol at the artist’s studio the Factory in 1968. In flashbacks the film tracks Solanas’ troubled youth and rise in New York’s downtown underground art scene, dramatizing her early friendships with and eventual paranoid enmity towards Warhol and his underworld confederates, culminating in the shooting. The film stars “Mad Men”’s Jared Harris as Warhol and is scored by the Velvet Underground’s John Cale—against the wishes of fellow Velvet Underground member Lou Reed.
IFC Center, opens June 12
"Rose of Nevada"
In a tiny fishing village off the coast of Cornwall, a time-traveling boat appears in harbor, accidentally transporting two men (George MacKay and Callum Turner) decades into the past. Director Mark Jenkin’s dreamlike, hallucinatory style imbues "Rose of Nevada" with lyrical mystery, and his use of old-fashioned film stock and re-recorded sound effects give the impression that the movie itself must have floated to our shores from some long-ago time period.
IFC Center, opens June 19
"Maddie’s Secret"
Comedian John Early hops into the director’s chair (and writer’s chair and actor’s chair) for "Maddie’s Secret," an absurdist comedy unlike any other absurdist comedy you’ve ever seen. Early stars as Maddie Ralph, a wannabe food influencer juggling a stressful job, an unfulfilling home life, and a dark secret from her past that threatens to upend her fragile world forever. Equal parts hilarious and (unexpectedly) moving, the film also stars frequent Early collaborator Kate Berlant, Eric Rahill, Kristen Johnston, and Conner O’Malley.
IFC Center is hosting sneak previews on June 16 and 17 with post-screening Q&As with John Early. Opens June 19.
"Do the Right Thing"
No movie captures the agony and the ecstasy (but mostly the agony) of a real New York summer heatwave as accurately as Spike Lee’s masterpiece "Do the Right Thing," playing as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s series By the People, For the People: Real American Tales. On a sweltering summer day in the middle of Bed-Stuy, racial tensions between the neighborhood’s Black residents and the Italian-American owners of a local pizza joint come to a boiling point, culminating in a moment of tragic violence. The film was the feature debut of both Rosie Perez and Martin Lawrence and cemented Lee as one of the greatest directors of his generation.
