Raunchy comedy I Want Your Sex starring Olivia Wilde as an artsy dominatrix and Cooper Hoffman as her muse is spinning some R-rated counter programming to Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
The Gregg Araki film from Magnolia Pictures, which world premiered at Sundance (see Deadline review), hits about 700 theaters. It’s Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh at 91%.
Hoffman stars as fresh-faced Elliot who lands his first post-college job with renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde). His fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse, but he soon finds himself way out of his depth. With Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, and pop star Charli XCX playing against type as Elliot’s uptight girlfriend.
I Want Your Sex played two dozen U.S. after Park City including Seattle, Chicago Critics, NewFest Pride, Provincetown, Frameline and Outfest, and partnered on screenings with Assistants vs. Agents and dating apps Grindr and FEELD, among others.
Araki joined Charli XCX for a Q&A in LA last week that was live streamed globally to YouTube on the day of her new album (Music, Fashion, Film) launch.
Janus Films is presenting Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s historical mystery The Samurai And The Prisoner at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center in New York and the Landmark Nuart in LA. Kurosawa will be in NYC for the first time in over a decade for six sold-out Q&As (and for a sold-out special appearance in Toronto next week). The film premiered at Cannes and has grossed nearly $10 million in Japan, a career peak for Kurosawa. Janus will expand it nationally throughout August.
The adaptation of Honobu Yonezawa’s 2021 prizewinning novel set in 16th-century Japan follows Lord Murashige Araki (Masahiro Motoki), who finds himself besieged within the walls of his own castle after rising up against the tyrannical Nobunaga Oda (Bando Shingo). Isolated, he is confronted with a series of mysterious crimes that shatter the fragile order of his court. At 95% with RT critics (off 43 reviews).
IFC Entertainment is rereleasing Richard Linkatater’s groundbreaking 2014 Boyhood on 110 screens. Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, it stars Ellar Coltrane as Mason, who literally grows up on screen before the audiences’ eyes. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are his parents and Lorelei Linklater his sister.
IFC’s Motor City is sticking around at 600 locations in week 2 (down from 1,600) after a solid opening.
Limited release: Yashaddai Owens’ debut feature Jimmy from Strand Releasing, starring Benny O. Arthur as a young James Baldwin arriving in Paris, opens at the IFC Center. In honor of Baldwin’s 102nd birthday, a celebratory screening Sunday (Aug. 1) at 6:30 will be followed by a conversation with the director and filmmaker Barry Jenkins. The impressionistic, black-and-white feature premiered at Telluride in 2024 and the New York Film Festival.
Unusual environmental documentary A Paradise Lost by Laurie Sumiye debuts at DCTV Firehouse in NYC for a weeklong run. The film combines animation with live-action footage to explore an unprecedented 1979 legal dispute that saw the rare Palila bird native to Hawaii sue the state to prevent its extinction amidst threats of climate change and fire.
During the court case (Palila v. Hawaii) to establish habitat protections for American endangered species, a stuffed Palila sat at the plaintiffs table, and the film from Blooming Ink Pictures is narrated from the bird’s POV.
Won the Best Social Justice and Environment Documentary Award at the Festival De Cine Antigua in Guatemala and has also screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival, the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival in Oregon, the Santiago Wild Film Festival in Chile, the EcoFrames Environmental Film Festival in Greece, and the SCINEMA International Science Festival in Australia.
Another brave bird: Penny Lane’s Wild Inside about NYC’s beloved owl Flaco opens at the IFC Center via Sandbox Films and HBO Documentary Films. In February of 2023, the male Eurasian eagle-owl, the largest species of owl in the world, was discovered missing from his cage at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan. What followed when Flaco, who had lived his entire life in captivity, took up residence on New York City rooftops and trees is a surprising story revealing the delight, concern, and fascination of millions in the city and beyond. Sandbox and Rooftop Films premiered the doc outdoors at Central Park’s Great Hill earlier this week.
More to come