This Week in Movies

What to watch: Aural terrorism, family sushi and Robert De Niro on Austinscreens

Things are back to normal in Austin and attention is turning back towards non-festival new releases. For those few people not going to see The Hunger Games, foreign and indie release options are plentiful. This weekend you have your choice of a Swedish comedy about musical terrorists, a documentary about the world's greatest sushi chef and a potent new drama from the director of About a Boy.

This Weekend at the Drafthouse

Opening at the new Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane location (as well as at the Ritz) is the Swedish aural terrorism comedy Sound of Noise. Amadeus Warnebring is a police officer who, having been raised in a talented musical family and constantly compared to his virtuoso violinist brother, has grown to resent the art form as he happens to be tone deaf.

Meanwhile, a group of six percussionists have planned a four movement symphony of sound to be played across the city utilizing everyday objects — their goal being to wake people up from the monotony of life. Things heat up as Warnebring gets closer and closer to the rogue musical group in an attempt to thwart their plans and silence them for good. Full of incredible percussion-based set pieces, dark humor and amusing backstories, Sound of Noise is ceaselessly inventive, one of the most rewarding and creative imports to hit Austin screens in quite some time.

In the basement of an office building in Tokyo, down an inconspicuous hallway leading to the subway, is Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat sushi restaurant owned and operated by Jiro Ono, whom many consider to be the world's greatest sushi chef. People pay top dollar for a chance to try one of his rolls, each one's creation being informed by 75 years of experience.

In the new film Jiro Dreams of Sushi the chef is profiled, his techniques probed, his professional relationships with suppliers and apprentices examined and, most importantly, his personal relationship with his sons laid bare. While his youngest son has branched off and opened his own restaurant, the eldest, Yoshikazu, struggles to lives up to Jiro's high standards as he is being prepared to take over the shop. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a foodie's delight and a fascinating portrait of obsession coursing through the veins of a family of world-class sushi makers.

This Weekend at Regal Arbor Cinema

About a Boy director Paul Weitz brings author Nick Flynn's memoirs "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" to life in the new film Being Flynn. Nick (Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood) is an insecure writer who, at the suggestion of his girlfriend, takes a job at a homeless shelter. It's there that he sees his father Jonathan (Robert De Niro) — who had walked out on him and his mother (Julianne Moore) years earlier — waiting in line for a bed.

Jonathan, an ex-con and a bigot in every sense of the word, has convinced himself of his own lies about multimillion-dollar advances for important works of fiction that he is working to produce. It is a plot potent with the potential for melodrama, but Being Flynn eschews typical redemption and coming-of-age tropes instead focusing on the real impact of damaged and soon-to-be-damaged characters coming face-to-face. It helps that Robert De Niro puts in his best performance in years, and the always notable Paul Dano is up to the challenge of sharing scenes with a legend.

Beyond the Weekend

The grand opening celebration at the new Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane location continues into next week with special screenings such as Cinema Cocktails: From Russian with Love, Action Pack: Commando and a screening of the sci-fi horror masterpiece The Thing (1982). Stop by to check out the new digs and make sure to save some time for a cocktail at 400 Rabbits.

unspecified

Movie Review

A Complete Unknown does justice to Bob Dylan's music at every step

Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.

Music biopics never seem to go out of style, although they’re rarely very good because most of them tend to tell the same story. A musician/band gets discovered, rises to popularity, experiences trouble at their peak due to (insert sex/drugs/alcohol/ego), and either finds a measure of redemption once they’ve been sufficiently humbled or dies due to their lack of control.

Paradoxically, what few music biopics fail to do is properly showcase the music that made the person popular in the first place, a mistake that A Complete Unknown doesn’t repeat, becoming a smashing success in the process. The film follows Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) over a roughly four-year period from when he first arrived in New York City in 1961 to his then-revolutionary electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

Dylan seeks out well-known folk singers Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) when he first arrives, with Seeger taking him under his wing. Dylan starts to establish himself in the local club scene with his unique songwriting voice, meeting fellow singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he starts an on-and-off relationship. As his popularity grows, his reaction is antithetical to what’s expected, as he rarely engages with fans and focuses on his next song(s) instead of the ones for which he became known.

Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line) and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, the film may not be much of a revelation for Dylan superfans, but for casual fans or those who know nothing about him, it is one of the most effective music biopics in recent memory, if not ever. Not only does Mangold track the musical evolution of Dylan, but he gives the full context of the people who influenced him most, including Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, and more.

The film is not a musical in the traditional sense, but the amount of music in it makes it the next best thing. Rarely does more than a few minutes go by before someone is singing, either on stage, for someone close to them, or as part of the songwriting process. Whether you’re a folk music fan or not, the way the genre is showcased in the film will make you believe in its power and why it was so popular at that particular point in time.

Dylan is famous for his enigmatic personality, and Mangold does a great job of maintaining that elusiveness while still exploring what drove Dylan early in his career. His relationships with Baez and the fictional Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) give him some dimension, but why he continually went back-and-forth between them (or why they put up with him) is only lightly explored. The film keeps most of the drama focused on the music, and it’s this decision that makes it as compelling as it is.

Chalamet has been “The Next Big Thing” since his Oscar nomination for Call Me By Your Name, but the combination of the Duneseries, Wonka, and now this has firmly established him as the star he is. His Dylan impersonation (including singing) is subtle-yet-clear, and he has the cool factor that makes him completely believable in the role. The supporting cast is also off-the-charts good, with Norton and Barbaro making the best cases for awards notice.

While 2024 has had its fair share of great movies, A Complete Unknown — in this critic’s opinion — should now be the favorite to win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars. It bucks the trend of mediocre music biopics by giving moviegoers the transporting feeling of what it was like to experience Dylan’s meteoric rise, and why his early songs remain so indelible.

---

A Complete Unknown is now playing in theaters.

movies film