BLOGTOWN

Netflix

It's a formula that worked well for four seasons, and the fifth season—which is out now on Netflix—shows that Grace and Frankie (and its titular stars) are continuing to improve with age, despite a few small hiccups. When Season 5 begins, Grace and Frankie have just escaped from their retirement community on a stolen golf cart and returned to their oceanfront home to learn it's just been sold. I won't give any spoilers, but this season you can look forward to a trip to a spa/cult, a visit to a leather bar, a proposal, a debacle involving 50,000 vibrators, and a cameo from RuPaul. Unfortunately, the show falters in its dismissive, stereotypical depictions of queer millennial culture, along with a weird time-warp in the finale.

Netflix

Then a promotional video dropped featuring über-famous models like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid frolicking around an island in the Bahamas that the ad claimed was once owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. It looked like Instagram incarnate—aquamarine waters, piña coladas, adorable beach pigs. Blink-182 and Major Lazer were booked to headline the festival. Attendees (who paid thousands of dollars for their tickets) were promised accommodations in luxury geodesic domes and meals cooked by celebrity chefs, along with water trampolines, yoga on the beach, and $1 million of real treasure and jewels hidden around the island. Instead, they got soggy FEMA tents and the infamous cheese sandwiches.

This is just the latest development in what's been a... unique release pattern for the film. Distributed by Netflix, the film was primarily made available via the streaming service, but at the same time, it also played theatrically in select markets, including Portland. During that initial release, film critics (including me!) were super obnoxious about how you just had to see Roma not at home, but in a good theater—

*pushes up glasses*

because its phenomenal sound and picture really do benefit from the inimitable theatrical experience

*gets wedgie, gets stuffed in a locker*

—but even then, there was yet another way to see it: A few exceedingly rare 70mm film screenings, which Cuarón hyped up as "for sure the most organic way to experience Roma," since 70mm shows "unique details not available on any other version. Being shot in 65mm, these prints bring live detail and contrast only possible using a big format film."

The end result was a flurry of mixed messaging, with some viewers left confused as to where and how they were "supposed" to see the "best" version of Roma. (All this was heaven, meanwhile, for bickering film dweebs, who live for insufferable debates like these.) On the upside, there were multiple ways to see Cuarón's remarkable film; on the downside, the discussion over how to see Roma sometimes overshadowed discussions about the film itself.

Chances are, if you're a film buff, or a Cuarón fan, or someone who tries to win your office's annual Oscars pool, you've already seen Roma, one way or another. But if you haven't—or if, like me, you've already seen it and just want to experience it again—this 70mm booking is an opportunity you shouldn't miss. It'll look and sound fantastic. But it's also worth remembering that ultimately, the important thing is just that people see Roma, however they're able. Roma is a bright and sad and thrilling and heartbreaking thing, and no matter how you see it, you'll be better off for having done so.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Glass is a pretty-but-emptily-ponderous mess, its sole accomplishment being a near-total waste of whatever goodwill Shyamalan had left after spending the better part of a decade as a punchline. As an act of pure regression, it is nearly flawless, with all his worst filmmaking instincts shamelessly indulged—especially his crippling, all-consuming addiction to "The Twist."

So speaketh Mercury Calendar Editor Bobby Roberts, and I see no reason not to trust his keen judgment on this matter.

In brighter news, the Northwest Film Center's annual Reel Music series starts up today, with the Mercury's Ned Lannamann, Ciara Dolan, and Robert Ham taking a look at the music-centric offerings. Read more about Reel Film here.

And then there's Destroyer, the latest from Karyn Kasuma. As Lannamann writes,

Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, The Invitation) directs this bleak, bleary LA noir about a damaged cop (Nicole Kidman, under layers of de-prettifying makeup) tracking down the leader of a crime ring in which she spent months undercover. Told through fractured timelines, Destroyer occasionally clicks as a feminist interpolation of typically male-dominated anti-hero detective tropes, and there are some truly electric moments, including a bank-heist shootout and a cameo from Bradley Whitford as—what else?—a shitweasel lawyer. But Kusama makes this a character study foremost, at the expense of the supporting characters and the story’s more interesting genre elements.

As far as streaming goes, you've got not one but two documentaries about 2017's disastrous Fyre Festival (more on those soon!), and in terms of repertory screenings, you have Mean Girls at the Academy Theater and some Miyazaki films at OMSI—Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, The Cat Returns, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and my favorite, Princess Mononoke. Hey! Maybe things aren't so garbage-y after all!

(Things are still garbage-y.)

(But Princess Mononoke's great.)

Read more of the Mercury’s award-winning* movies and TV coverage! For movie times, click here.