First Time Watches - June Top 10

Operation Avalanche (2016), directed by Matt Johnson.

I caught Nirvanna the Band fever this year. This is an early and wildly entertaining foray by Matt Johnson and company into feature film making. Johnson and Owen Williams play NASA-employed videographers who get wind that the Apollo 11 moon mission is going to get kiboshed for technical reasons, and propose to their bosses to make a film to fake the moon landing. This is, of course, the stuff of urban myth but Johnson, as is his remarkable talent, makes you believe everything that transpires. There is, for instance, a scene where the boys meet with Stanley Kubrick to shoot the hoax because they realize they lack the suitable filmmaking chops, and you totally believe it. Kubrick rejects them, they forge ahead, and dire consequences transpire.

Pillion (2025), directed by Harry Lighton.

"Do you give?" That's it. That's the whole review. Great movie.

Back Door to Heaven (1939), directed by William K. Howard.

I was tilted towards Mr. Howard based on a rec from the great Dave Kehr, and this was my favorite of the ones I was able to dig up. The story of a poor kid who cannot rise above his station in life but nevertheless lives a life of dignity, it reminded me of Bunuel's Los Olvidados as it portrays the great evil is be poverty itself, and not poor people.

Backrooms (2026), directed by Kane Parsons.

Perhaps the most exciting development of the phenomenon that is Backrooms is not the age of the director (20), the astonishing box office returns, the origin as a You Tube series, or the fact that it gives Chiwetel Ejiofor his best role in years after being largely under-utilized. It is that it denotes the normalization of narrative incoherence to the popular cinema. The single biggest complaint about the film is that it gets to explain-y and expository in the third act. And while the exposition is fairly light-handed in comparison to the average Multi-Plex faire, I have to agree. I relished having no idea what was going on. The kids are all right.

Lurker (2025), directed by Alex Russell.

A clothing store clerk (Theodore Pellerin) hits it off with a pop star (Archie Madewke, the best thing in the awful Saltburn) and cannot resist taking their relationship too far. Interesting take on fan culture, you are not really sure what direction it will veer, but first-time director Russell takes you there adeptly.

Penrod and Sam (1931), directed by William Beaudine.

Mr. Beaudine is having a renaissance. The New Beverly had a months-long retrospective of his voluminous work, and TCM dedicated some time to his films in June as well. The prodigious Beaudine, who directed all sorts of films, including those of the Bowery Boys and the regrettable Charlie Chan, adapted Booth Tarkington's novel here to charming effect. Two impish scamps with a strong bond basically rule the roost over their neighborhood until they are split up over, natch, a girl. Charming, effortless, and showing a deft eye with composition and a great feel for childhood, this is the film I would recommend if one should want to take the Beaudine plunge.

Tuner (2025), directed by Daniel Roher.

I was first drawn to this because I heard that Dustin Hoffman was in a new movie and was surprised to find a taut, deeply felt character driven crime-adjacent thriller. About a piano prodigy (Leo Woodall) whose hearing disability (he hears just a little TOO well) limits his musical career but makes him uniquely talented at piano tuning and, because a movie about a piano tuner probably would not have gotten funded, cracking safes. Hoffman plays his mentor (at piano tuning, not safe cracking. He's great, of course).

Is God Is (2026), directed by Aleshea Harris.

Uneven and in-your-face to be sure, but an altogether impressive directorial debut from Harris, based on her prize-winning play. Racine (Kara Young, great) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson, equally great) are twin sisters, each marred in a fire set by their evil father, who, at the entreaty of their equally marred mother, set out for revenge. The great Sterling K. Brown embodies the evil.

Street Scene (1931), directed by King Vidor.

TCM had a day of the films of the great King Vidor this month, most of them of the lesser known variety. Turns out more than a few were pretty hard watches (there was a reason they were lesser known, I guess). An exception was this gorgeous early talkie. Like his contemporary, Rouben Mamoulian, Vidor was undaunted by the technical restrictions of early talky cinema. And here he has orchestrated a swooping, swooning symphony of the city from sun up to sun down and back again, celebrating the foibles, crimes and loves of the denizens (mostly immigrants, mind you) of a certain New York neighborhood during a heat wave. And unlike Mamoulian, Vidor was always character first, technique second. Based on a Pulitzer prize winning play but, in the King's hands, pure cinema.

Walker (1987), directed by Alex Cox.

Alex Cox, a terrific guy, mind you, hasn't done himself any favors since Sid and Nancy. He's made a bunch of bad films. But Walker is not one of them. It is a terrific piece of agit-prop with a great central performance from Ed Harris, and tells the (true) story of William Walker, who basically anoints himself President of Nicaragua through sheer persistence, charisma and force. Something that could never, ever happen these days, of course. Using distancing modernist affectations which at the time seemed to alienate viewers but now seem absolutely of our time. A great, great film.