Two gritty streaming series – Apple TV+’s “Dope Thief” and Netflix’s “Adolescence”– are the must-sees of this week, along with Stephen Soderbergh’s just-about-perfect spy movie “Black Bag.”
And should you have an overriding desire to attain celebrity status or you just worship stars, you might want to reconsider all that after seeing the horror satire “Opus.”
Here’s our roundup.
“Adolescence”: It’s a parent’s ultimate nightmare. The cops barge into your house early in the morning, demand to see your 13-year-old son and then take him away and accuse him of murder. In “Adolescence,” the soul-piercing four-part Netflix series by actor Stephen Graham (“Peaky Blinders,” “A Thousand Blows”), co-written with Jack Thorne (“This Is England”), the shocked Miller family reels from the news that Jamie (Owen Cooper in a performance that will shatter and haunt you) might have killed a 13-year-old girl.
Each episode is shot in one take, and while that might sound gimmicky, it works and doesn’t call attention to itself, making it feel like we’re experiencing this live and with the same rawness and realness of its characters. The first episode centers on Jamie and his father Eddie (Graham) going through questioning; the second revolves around two detectives (Ashley Walters and Faye Marsay) venturing into Jamey’s school; the third — and most explosive — focuses on a session between a psychologist (Briony Ariston) and Jamey; and the fourth — the most wrenching — follows the Miller family at home eight months after the crime.
All told, this is a heartbreaking look at a devastating tragedy that leaves a community and a family grappling with the heartbreak and wondering if they played a part in what happened. It’s powerful and finds Graham being a force in front of and behind the camera.
Details: 3 stars out of 4; available March 13 on Netflix.
“Dope Thief”: That ideal union rarely happens: A superior cast that can expertly handle morally hazy characters gets presented with hard-edged, juicy material that is uncompromising and authentic. Such is how it is with creator Peter Craig (co-writer of Ben Affleck’s “The Town” and “The Batman”) and his new eight-part series on Apple TV+. Craig’s violent, often brilliant hard-boiled Philly-set crime story comes loaded with heavy hitters slugging away at the front and the back of the house. This includes its source material — author Dennis Tafoya’s gritty, blunt-nosed novel — to executive producer Ridley Scott, who directs the shattering first episode. It’s framed around the exploits of two best childhood buds Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) who operate a successful biz scamming low-level drug dealers by acting like they’re D.E.A. agents and then making off with the goods and cash. That is until they cross the path of the wrong dealers and then find themselves sucked into an unending bloody awful nightmare that involves Neo Nazis, the mob and more. Now, they’re the ones with huge targets on their backs and watch as those threats shove others into the feuding crosshairs, including Ray’s bigger-than-life momma (Kate Mulgrew, chewing it up for a potential Emmy nomination) and his doing-time in the joint dad (Ving Rhames). As the violence escalates, the more affable Ray and the more emotionally brittle Manny see their friendship and sanity tested, setting off an explosive chain of reckless events. Henry and Moura play off each other well with Henry’s multi-layered performance — he stays true to the survivor spirit inherent in his character throughout — worthy of awards consideration. He and Moura nail the details in a production that nails gritty visual details about what the hard edges of Philly and a few of its tattered by the opioid crisis ‘burbs look and feel like. Details: 3½ stars; first episode drops March 14.
“Opus”: Mark Anthony Green’s observations from his stint as an GQ style/arts columnist fuel his barbed-wire feature debut, a compelling horror satire that does a bloody good job of skewering the same pop-culture world he inhabited and covered.
Green’s got a lot on his mind and his freaky tale blasts the cult of celebrity culture and explores how fans’ zealous adoration and the constant pampering stars receive can produce monsters amongst us. Fame, as the film slams home, can even tempt and lure a so-called “innocent” into a trap. Those of-our-times themes offer a lot to chew on and sometimes it’s all too much, with Green tripping over himself in the final act. He sprints through a shocking finale, and it would have been more effective if he had taken more time to better execute the chaos.
“Opus” hits the bullseye in its first half by adroitly juggling humor with “Midsommar-”tinged weirdness as a crew of media types (Ayo Edebiri, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Stephanie Suganami, Melissa Chambers and Mark Sivertsen) receive a special invite to a freaky cult-like enclave way out in the Southwest. Each represents someone who parasitically benefits from the actions and accomplishments of celebrities, and become celebrities themselves.
They, of course, jump at the chance to meet the enigmatic, most popular living music idol, their cuckoo host Moretti (John Malkovich, inhabiting weird spaces only a rich and famous person could, and doing so with a dead-eyed look). The recluse of 30 years comes out of hibernation and emerges with a new album that fires up more brain-dead devotion and fawning.
Touting a faith that draws in the youth and includes harmful edicts that are utterly nonsensical, Moretti’s “retreat” turns ever more bizarre when he makes requests and then performs in front of his guests. It’s one of the strangest sites you’ll see in a movie this year.
Green holds back on the violence until he unleashes it with a primeval viciousness that is shocking and brutal. There’s an abundance of strange behavior throughout and exceptional setting-the-mood cinematography from Tommy “Maddox” Upshaw.” Even though “Opus” hiccups at the end, its many pieces fit well together to hold up a mirror to a world gone mad by the idols it produces and the people who want in on the mirage. Details: 3 stars; in theaters March 14.
“The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie”: There is something wholly endearing, nostalgic and just plain sweet about seeing Warner Bros. cartoon stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck in a full-length feature. And rather than spice it all up and make it ultra-contemporary (OK, the team of 12 writers toss in a few “now” references). They stick with the kooky storylines of yore as Porky and Daffy try to get some cash to fix the rundown house they live in that’s proving to be a community eyesore. They strike out to land jobs but none stick till they get gigs at the chewing gum factory — the biggest employer in the town. But the bigger problem is an alien who’s tinkering with a gum flavor and turning residents into zombies. It’s all daffy as that duck and more amusing than funny, but it’s amusing and animated in the style that will make you feel like a kid gleefully watching Saturday morning cartoons. And sometimes all you need for about 90 minutes to become that kid again, even if it took 12 writers to help bring back that feeling again. Details: 2½ stars, in theaters March 14.
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”: Rungano Nyoni’s unshakeable follow-up to “I Am Not a Witch” is just as formidable as her stop-and-take-notice debut. There are many layers to peel back and ponder in her latest, particularly in its final, unforgettable scene. It fools us that it’ll be a quirky Zambia-set dramedy that revolves around a man being found dead on a road and then takes a serious turn, escalating into a damning portrait of a patriarchal society where few feel safe to raise collective voices and call out a legacy of injustices. From the evocative cinematography to the naturalistic acting (particularly Susan Chardy, as the main character Shula) and a sometimes alarming birdcall of a soundtrack, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” cements Nyoni’s rep as a filmmaker with vision and conviction. This one sticks in your head months afterwards. Details: 3½ stars; opens March 14 at the AMC Kabuki and Alamo Drafthouse, both in SF; opens March 28 at the Roxie, S.F.
“Control Freak”: A traumatic childhood resurfaces and is just itching to destroy the comfortable existence of a successful, hyper-efficient motivational speaker (Kelly Marie Tran) in director/screenwriter Shal Ngo’s horror feature. Expanding upon themes addressed in his short, Ngo’s unsettling feature doesn’t take cheap pot-shots at the self-help industry as much as it uses it to show how the pursuit of perfection is flawed from the start. No one’s perfect and that’s part of what Val needs to realize and to appreciate in life since she has a partner (Miles Robbins) who loves her but has a limit in what he can take. As Val increasingly itches at the back of her head that later unleashes something long suppressed but not reconciled within her, “Control Freak” switches to body horror/creature feature. It does OK when it goes there, but “Control Freak” is at its best when Val digs into her past and confronts the demons inside of her and the ones she sees in front of her. Details: 2½ stars, drops March 13 on Hulu.
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.