Watch Punk Rock-Loving Aliens in How to Talk to Girls at Parties Trailer

A teen punk fan unwittingly falls in love with an alien in the new trailer for How to Talk to Girls at Parties. The movie was co-written and directed by Hedwig and the Angry Inch director John Cameron Mitchell, based on an original story by science fiction author, Neil Gaiman.

Girls is set in London in the late 1970s, when punk erupted and became a national phenomenon. Enn, played by the actor Alex Sharp, attends a raucous show with two friends before meandering into a house party, where he encounters oddly dressed revelers with strange customs. They must be from California, one of Alex Sharps sidekicks decides.

Instead, this group which includes Elle Fanning as Zan turns out to be a passel of aliens visiting Earth to complete a mysterious rite of passage. Enn is smitten with Zan, and he takes her around London introducing her to various human pastimes. Parts of the trailer play like punk-1970s version of Will Ferrells Elf. Nicole Kidman also shows up as a rabble-rouser in her best punk-chic attire.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties does not yet have a release date.

Birds of Passage Review: Colombian Crime Saga Is Stunning, Surreal, Epic

Its tempting to think weve seen it all when it comes to gangster movies the Tommy-gunning tough guys, the cosa nostra capos and cutthroats, the tattooed yakuza hard men, the cartel-to-Chinese-triad thug lifers, the coked-out kingpins with their Everest-sized blow piles and ballistic little friends. Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerras stunning, sumptuous Birds of Passage isnt out to reinvent the wheel regarding drug-lord narratives, nor is it asking Tony Montana to hold its beer. But what it brings to the party by setting its near-folkloric narco tale within the insular indigenous Wayuu community deep in the hills of North Colombia is more than just genre exotica. Part anthropological study, part rise-and-fall epic and all-out mesmerizing, this regional spin on the family business saga makes you rethink the notions behind why we watch crime flicks past the vicarious thrills. Its both foreign and familiar. Its a capitalism-is-a-virus cautionary tale. Its the sort of second-hand trip too close to the sun that reminds you why history repeats itself the minute human nature enters the picture.

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We meet Zaida (Natalia Reyes) and Rafayet (Jos Acosta) during a ritual known as the Yonna dance, an elaborate pas de deux involving flowing red robes, a choreography that mimics bird flight and a need to keep up or bow out. For her, its coming-of-age moment; for him, its the first steps of a courtship. But given that shes the daughter of a prominent family among the tribes and he has only his uncle ones who a word messenger, a respected role in the community, but still to vouch for him, Rafayet has to prove he can be a provider. During a trip to move coffee with his friend Moises (Jhon Narvez), they come across some American Peace Corps volunteers who are looking to score some weed. His buddy sees a bunch of hedonistic hippie gringos. Rafayet sees a burgeoning, untapped market. A deal is made. Then the Americans introduce him to an importer/exporter. Soon, our man has a wife, a family, a regular supplier via his Machiavellian cousin (Juan Batista Martinez), an empire. Also: betrayals, assassinations, dealings with trigger-happy loose cannons, reminders about why you never mix the personal and the professional, perma-burnt bridges, bitter enemies, dead bodies.

Before Gallego and Guerra even bring on the ganja business plans and dreams of going global, the co-directors spends time immersing viewers in the Wayuus world the colorful, spellbinding Yonna dance is only the tip of the iceberg. Tradition, along with an inherent mistrust of alijunas (rough translation: outsiders), is what has kept them alive; god forbid you cross Zaidas mother Ursula (Carmia Martnez), the head matriarch in charge and keeper of ancient flames. And once wealth, along with greed and free enterprise, enters the picture, the respect for how we do things, per Ursula, is one of the first things to go out the window. Even without explanations on the art of dream-talking or why certain necklaces are considered sacred, the film takes great pains to immerse you in this way of life, the importance of family, the significance of their communal gatherings, centuries-old customs and superstitions. All the better, naturally, for showing us how easy it is for all of it to slip away one dope-business double-cross at a time.

In the duos previous movie Embrace of the Serpent (2015 Guerra solo-directed and Gallego produced), the age-old topic of colonialisms impact on indigenous culture was hashed out in two timelines worth of European explorers muddying the Amazonian waters. Here, via five canto chapterheads (Song 1: Wild Grass, 1968; Song 2: The Graves, 1971) and a 12-year timespan, they take on the corrosive effects of capitalism en extremis. Remember, say no to communism! squeak the Sixties longhairs that enable Rafayet and Moises to play lets-make-a-drug-deal for the first time. But when they say yes to the free market, theyre rewarded with wildest-dreams riches in the short term and social instability in the long run. The fact that its trickling in from the West represented here by freewheeling tourists and po-faced transporters only drives the point home quicker. The gringos provide the destructive infrastructure. The Colombian players themselves are the ones dealing with the blood-feud demises.

All of the above may sound like Birds of Passage is an academic PowerPoint presentation (Pulowi, Guns and Money: How the Marijuana Trade Wrecked South American Native Culture, 1960-1980 [slide-click noise]). It isnt. What Guerra and Gallego give you is indeed an old-fashioned gangster movie, one where you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, where business conducted without honor ends in bullets and drug wars have a way of destroying decades of prosperity. There are tense sit-downs and stand-offs, sieges on jungle compounds and a particularly brutal shoot-out at a narco mansion in the middle of the desert. (A command to bring in more men from Medellin immediately ties this carnage to an even bigger criminal enterprise happening in the same country at the same time.) Martnez plays her family-first mother like Don Corleone in a floral robe; Reyes turns the equivalent of a moll role into a study in complicity that Carmela Soprano would recognize; Acosta balances business savvy with a desperate attempt to keep Rafayets moral compass from cracking. Theres even a mad-dog character Zaidas blond little brother, Leonidas (Grieder Meza) that has to be put down. Payback trumps everything, even profit margins. Antiheroes or villains, everyone has their reasons.

And the filmmakers give you some truly surreal images, absolutely breathtaking wide shots of landscapes both lush and barren, a sense that youre voyeuristically peeking into a subculture and a superior exercise in bending a genre to make points without breaking it. Three viewings in, Im still flabbergasted by the scope and detail of this movie; three viewings from now, Ill probably continue to be in awe of the way its unique cover version of a crime-doesnt-pay story totally pays off. A wild grass that came as a savior, but destroyed like locusts, sings a balladeer right before the end credits. The line turns the tale into a fable. Birds of Passage treats it all like a widescreen gut-punch of a tragedy.

Watch Chance the Rapper Track Killer Werewolf, Deliver Pizza in Slice Trailer

Chance the Rapper andAtlantas Zazie Beetz try to track down a werewolf in between pizza deliveries in the new trailer forSlice.

The clip opens with the mysterious murder of a pizza delivery boy, prompting Beetzs character, as well as a few other amateur sleuths, to take on the case. Soon, the investigators realize theyre tracking a supernatural being that likely emerged from a gateway to Hell, situated beneath a pizza shop. Chance the Rapper only makes a brief appearance at the end of the Slice trailer, but the clip is still packed with plenty of delightfully campy slasher flick mayhem.

Austin Vesely directed Slice, which also stars Paul Scheer, Rae Gray and Joe Keery. A release date for the film has yet to be announced.

Slice marks Chance the Rappers film debut, though he previously collaborated with Vesely on several music videos, including Angels, Sunday Candy and Brain Cells.

Monrovia, Indiana Review: Small Town U.S.A., Frederick Wiseman Style

You may expect sparks to fly in a documentary about an Indiana town whose citizens voted 76 percent in favor of the liberal punching bag who now occupies the White House. But nothing as simplistic as Trump-bashing though that would be so satisfying would ever occur to Frederick Wiseman, a master chronicler of American institutions (a hospital, a zoo, a racetrack, public school, a boxing gym, a police department). In more than a half-century of filmmaking, Wiseman, now 88, has always put journalistic integrity at the forefront of his documentaries, from the controversial 1967 work Titicut Follies (about a state prison for the criminally insane) to last years Ex Libris The New York Public Library. The elderly verit statesman has admitted that bias can show up in the editing, but he refuses to rely on narration or similar signposts to tell audiences what hes thinking or more importantly, what they should think.

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Theres no fake news in a Wiseman documentary. Monrovia, Indiana is his 42nd nonfiction feature and its rigorously non-judgemental. The farming town of Morovia (population 1,063), a part of Morgan County, is mostly white, aging, Republican, pro-gun and pro-God, but not necessarily in that order. A gun lobby ad states: Welcome to Indiana, home to a million concealed carry permits; enjoy your stay. Notice is taken of fields sprouting corn and soybeans, of cattle being numbered for sale. Wisemans camera follows the good folks into church at weddings and funerals. He listens to them in barber shops, beauty parlors and restaurants, follows them into town council meetings where the lack of workable fire hydrants is seriously and lengthily considered. Trump is never addressed directly. Monrovians dont talk politics, or at least Wiseman doesnt show them doing so. When a group of Hells Angels vrooms past on their hogs, its like a thunderclap. And another scene, with a vet, amputating the tail of a dog, plays like a horror film in this context.

What is he aiming to show us in this impressionistic look at business as usual in our aging republic? Recent Wiseman docs, such as At Berkeley and In Jackson Heights bustled with activity on a culturally diverse landscape. In this rural American town, citizens dont advance growth they worry about it, expressing concern about letting too much of the outside in. At two-and-a-half hours, Monrovia, Indiana often feels static and low-key to a fault. As always, Wiseman is working hard at being fair, refusing to condemn or even condescend to what his camera sees. Still, the thought persists that just maybe this portrait of a closed-off and threatened heartland is indicative of what goes on in the polling booth where folks vote their fears in silence. And that is a scary proposition, indeed.

What Do The Purge Movies Say About Us?

Imagine an America in which, for 12 hours, all laws are suspended and all crime is legal. Murder, rape, arson, robbery, jaywalking the minute the klaxon goes off, society gets a free pass to do whatever it wants. During this annual holiday where citizens get to release the beast, the 1-percenters barricade themselves in their state-of-the-art smart houses. The poor, wellyou can guess what happens to the poor. Theyre fucked per usual. But hey, whats a little class warfare when its open season in the name of collective catharsis, right? Happy cleansing, folks.

Thats the premise behind writer-director James DeMonocos The Purge, a 2013 movie that dropped Ethan Hawke and Game of Thrones Lena Headey into a yuppie nightmare. Now four movies into a bona fide franchise the latest, The First Purge, lands right before Independence Day, because of course this combo of home-invasion thriller, dystopic slasher flick and gore-soaked social satire has become one of the most successful low-budget, high-return series running. (The first three films combined worldwide box office is just under $320 million; their combined budgets probably cost less than a single five-minute CGI sequence in a Marvel movie.) And thats not even counting the 10-episode TV series thats dropping on the USA Network this September, which looks to deliver more of the bloodlust-rinse-repeat formula into the comfort of your own living room.

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Which begs the question: Why, exactly, are these films so consistently popular? Never mind the fact that horror is a reliable multiplex staple overall, and that Blumhouse the production company responsible for an ungodly amount of the scary movies youre seeing in theaters these days has figured out how to keep is finger on the primal-fear pulse of moviegoers while keeping the price-tags low. What collective chords are these movies continually striking?

You could point to the sheer relatability inherent the fantastic notion of the all-you-can-kill buffets that lies at the center. When the companys majordomo Jason Blum sat down with Bill Simmons for the hosts Ringer podcast, he explained the genesis (more or less) of the concept: Driving in Long Island, James DeMonoco was cut off in traffic. I want to kill that guy, the director allegedly said to his wife; her reply was What if you could? He then pushed the idea to the next logical blow-off-steam extreme, albeit one that has occurred to virtually anyone whos suffered through everyday indignities. Who hasnt wanted to punch the person who swerved in front of them? Which is one modest proposal away from: So then what if you, could, say, burn down your the house of your obnoxious neighbor, the one who plays their music too loud all the time, as well? What are these movies if not viewers violent vicarious thrills writ large?

And there are other factors as well. These movies have the most diverse casts this side of the Fast & Furious films, with a mix of African-American, Latino and white actors like actually reflect your typical movie audiences. Starting with the 2014 sequel The Purge: Anarchy, it gave the world a blue-collar action hero in Frank Grillo, an Italian-American actor who comes off like both the dude next to you in line at the deli and the toughest guy at your local MMA dojo. (Hes a tough-guy alternative to the A-list stars our generations Lee Marvin.) And bloody kills + creepy masks = asses in seats on a Friday night is not exactly rocket science.

But best of all, the Purge movies have a cake-and-beat-it-to-death-too when it comes to sneaking in digs about our nations class system. (Yes, America does have one. Please stop pretending that we dont.) In that same podcast, Blum also said that half the audience sees the films as cautionary tales and the other half as a great idea its a one-rage-fits-all notion that appeals to Bernie bros and MAGA nuts alike. It wasnt a coincidence that The Purge: Election Year, which dropped during the most divisive political campaigning in decades, featured white-supremacist villains, BLM-style public dissent, N.R.A. pandering and gun-control advocacy. You can be a Tea Partyer or Occupy advocate and find something here. Its as free-form outraged as your average Twitter feed.

And now we get The First Purge, a prequel that looks back at how this whole thing started with good intentions, greedy political power grabs, a blonde Marisa Tomei, angry citizens and a need to vent with violence on both sides. It will undoubtedly make a mint as well. You could say these movies predicted the current moral free-fall of the Trump era or were made for them really, were one tweetstorm away from our commander-in-chief jokingly suggesting something just like it. But the only real ideology behind these movies goes beyond partisanship. To quote the end of our Election Year review, the Purge movies shared connection is: America is violence. God bless the U.S.A. God save us all. The sentiment, eerily enough, feels even more potent and terrifying and real today than it did then.

Fighting With My Family Review: Your Basic Suplex-to-Nuts Wrestling Biopic

Some parents expect their children to grow up and become doctors, lawyers, CEOs. Ricky and Julia Knight wanted their kids to become WWE superstars. Wrestling is the family business for the Knights, who run an amateur organization the World Association of Wrestling, were sure youve heard of it out of the small English town of Norwich. Dad (Nick Frost) is the mohawked terror known as Rowdy Ricky; Mom (Game of Thrones Lena Headey) dishes out pain under the name Sweet Saraya. And from the moment that their young daughter Saraya-Jade learned how to get out of a chokehold properly, she and her brother Zak were expected to get in the ring. The family that leg-drops together stays together, etc.

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Cut to the siblings in their teens, with Saraya-Jade (Florence Pugh) hitting the ropes as Britani and partner Zodiac Zak (Jack Lowden) giving local punters their moneys worth. Then, the call comes: WWE representatives are going to be in London for a Smackdown event. Theyve seen the siblings tapes and theyd like both of them to audition. After running into The Rock backstage (Dwayne Johnson in the role he was born to play, i.e. an even more charismatic version of himself), the Knights try out for a wisecracking drill sergeant of a trainer named Hutch (Vince Vaughn). Zak gets the boot. Saraya-Jade gets invited to train in pro-wrestlings equivalent of the minor leagues in Florida. Soon, our pale, Gothed-out heroine has renamed herself Paige and settled in to a physically punishing boot-camp experience. She also finds herself lost in America, a British Siouxsie Sioux among a sea of Barbies and one bad day away from seeing everything fall apart.

If you know Paiges real-life, ragged-leotards-to-riches story, you know how this all plays out. Even if you dont, Fighting With My Family makes no bones about telegraphing where its going and what kind of sports movie it is. There will be life lessons and setbacks and heel turns, especially when Zaks resentment over his sisters opportunity curdles into a personal downward spiral. Of course there are training montages, how could you even ask? Vaughns coach belongs to a long line of screen hard-asses determined to either push athletes past their limits or break their spirits one soul-crushing putdown at a time his aggro-sarcastic comic timing has not been this on-point since Swingers. But how many times do you think Mr. Side Eye will quietly smile to himself when Paige does something right, or give her a youre-ok-kid nod when she succeeds in winning over tough crowds? We stopped counting once that number hit triple digits. Just when you think Paige is down for the count, she finds the inner strength to come roaring back. The movie even plays like a wrestling match. Its Underdog Cinema 101.

Whats surprising is how well all of this suplex-to-nuts biopic works. Hiring Stephen Merchant, one-half of the braintrust behind the original U.K. edition of The Office and a writer-director with a droll wit, to tell Paiges story initially seems like an odd fit. But the skewed humor and warmth and scrappiness he brings to the family scenes, along with the fact that he doesnt treat pro wrestling like a hold-your-nose novelty, is enough to distinguish this from a million other started-at-the-bottom-now-were-champs tales. Temporarily liberated from scowling and shorn-haired walks of shame, Headey is clearly having fun with her grappling, faux-growling wrestler mom. Fans of Frost or Frostitutes, as the resident comic relief in Edgar Wrights repertory company has sometimes referred to us diehards will be ecstatic that hes given ample opportunity to indulge in goofballery, yet not at the expense of his characters paternal concern. (Hes not just a comic caricature, in other words.) If the sequences of Zac nosediving into self-destructiveness feel like weak links, the rapport between him and his sister nail the bond of siblings born into a family dynamic involving the regular administration of piledrivers. And we havent even mentioned the movies not-so-secret weapon yet.

That would be Florence Pugh, an English actor whos been slowly building an impressive resum of period-piece heroines with claws and fangs. Those who first saw her in hell-hath-no-fury mode in Lady Macbeth (2016) registered someone with a genuine fearlessness; anyone who caught her Cordelia in a recent King Lear adaptation and her steely queen in Outlaw King (both 2018) could tell she was meant for bigger things than corsets and cowering in musty castle corners. Before you could yell, Welcome home, Helena Bonham Carter 2.0!, we got her undercover recruit in AMCs John le Carr adaptation The Little Drummer Girl, and it started to feel like her talent was real-thing transcendent. This confirms it. Paige is the sort of role that requires her to be vulnerable, tough, rebellious, funny, determined, drained, someone capable of executing a move called The Paigeturner, everyones little sister and the sort of larger-than-life performer that can command an arena. She lets you see where all of this springs from, and how its all part of the same misfit. Youd be advised to see it for Pughs fireplug turn alone, which makes the just-north-of-oddball take on a warhorse narrative, the Rocks charm-offensive cameos and a really choice Vin Diesel dig almost feel like bonuses.

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love Review: A Ladies Man and His Muse

In the 1960s, on the Greek island of Hydra, a Norwegian ex-pat met a young Canadian poet. She was shopping in a market when this dashing, mustachioed figure appeared in the doorway. Would you like to join us? the handsome silhouette asked her. Were sitting outside. Their eyes met, and that was it: Welcome to the Mediterranean region of Smittensville. Her name was Marianne Christine Ihlen; his name was Leonard Cohen. You probably know the rest if you know Cohens story, or if you simply have a passing familiarity with the lyrics to So Long, Marianne. If not, Nick Broomfield is happy to fill you in.

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Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love charts the friendship, love affairs and off-on relationship between these two, which resulted in broken hearts, cold shoulders and several unbelievably beautiful songs. After instantly connecting, the two fell into what Ihlen describes as a fairly stock male artist/female muse relationship: He spent his days writing his novel Beautiful Losers (later described in reviews as verbal masturbation and that was the Canadian press!) and taking speed; she went shopping and prepped meals and supported him. Various friends, neighbors and fellow free spirits attest to the sort hippie-idyllic vibe of the islands community, as home movies portray this young couple smiling, swimming and swooning over each other.

Eventually, Leonard feels compelled to return to his native Montreal, where his career as the next Norman Mailer gets sidetracked. One day, he happens to play folk singer Judy Collins a bit of Suzanne. She records the song and turns it into a hit. Collins gets him to perform part of it at a fundraiser and Cohen leaves the stage halfway through, sobbing. She brings him back. They finish it together. A star is born. And the union between the musician and his lady love back in Greece experiences the first of many terminal diagnoses to come.

Both a memento mori and the chronicle for how there aint no cure for love, the doc continually underlines Cohens finicky nature (after begging Marianne and her son Axel to live with him in Montreal, the two fly out to meet him at which point he declares the invite a mistake) and his shark-like need to keep moving or perish. A few attempts at character psychology worm their way in cue footage of Leonards mom but mostly, we get a portrait of the poet for quasi-depressed women of his era. As for Ilhen, we get a sense of her loneliness, her attempts to balance being a mother and a partner, the toll of wanting something she cant have and someone who wont be tied down. Even as things are coming to their conclusion, Cohen is still using their bond as the basis for his art. His amore apparently disliked So Long, Marianne. The footage of Ilhen watching him sing the famous song that bears her name in 2009, however, suggests a tender pride at having been part of his arc.

And because this is a Broomfield joint, the director is also more than happy to tell you that he and Marianne were briefly involved with each other, to go on about how she gave him his first hit of acid and to include a contemporary scene of him visiting an old friend to talk about their glory days of hanging out with so much golden sun-kissed people of either sex. The way he pronounces the word lovers could not sound more world-weary, or more giggle-inducing and gauche; even though the veteran filmmaker actually has a legit first-hand connection to the story, the temptation to roll your eyes every time he tries to insert himself into the spotlight is irresistible. (Shockingly, the Kurt & Courtney documentarian does not bump into a single boom microphone once.) Everybody knows that you pay the ticket, you take the occasional but-enough-about-my-subject detours on the Broomfield ride.

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But the payoff is huge. Theres a lot of great Cohen footage, much of it taken from the invaluable 1974 tour diary Bird on a Wire, and you get his journey from early scribblings to late-tour comeback. And Marianne & Leonard doubles as a look at the darker side of the Sixties bohemian ideal, when Hydras utopia went from hedonistic freedom to marriages dissolving and both donkeys and kids being unwittingly dosed. People took it too far, one talking head notes, and the already fine line between anything-goes and everything-falls-apart gets blurred beyond recognition. There are cracks in the permissive postcard paradise thats how the darkness gets in.

What makes this film unmissable, however, is the fact that we get Mariannes story more or less in full as well. Its a fleshing out of someone who was more than just a muse, more than just an object of affection for a notorious ladies man, a famous singer and an infamous bastard. Weve heard the now-famous letter that the musician wrote to Ilhen as she lay on her deathbed, of how he was just a little behind you in terms of time running out. (Cohen would shuffle off this mortal coil three months after her final breath.) But to see that letter being read aloud, and to witness the run of emotions across her face as she processes one final affectionate so long, is to feel that the narrative has been handed back to her. Theres a reason her name comes first in the title. Marianne is no longer just Leonards muse. Shes a woman whos lived and loved and lost completely apart from the songs.

A version of this review ran in our Sundance 2019 coverage.