Kirk and Spock battle an evil genius in STAR TREK II
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (Nicholas Meyer, 1982)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, July 6, and Saturday, July 7, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
With all the movies, TV series, and everything else, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan just might be the best thing that has ever come out of Star Trek land. We’re talking the Genesis project here, earwigs, Kirk’s offspring, Khan’s superior intellect, Kirstie Alley as a Vulcan, Spock bending the truth, the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, and Kirk screaming out his enemy’s name in unforgettable fashion, a classic movie moment. Everybody’s on board the USS Enterprise for this journey, including Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekhov (Walter Koenig), Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner). The enemy is the conniving but brilliant Khan Noonien Singh, played with delightful relish by Ricardo Montalban, returning from an episode of the original television series. Just the way Montalban pronounces “Kirk” is worth the price of admission; the film serves up a bevy of memorable quotes throughout. The ending is both surprising and surprisingly heartwarming, laying the groundwork for the third film. The Wrath of Khan is about loyalty, friendship, honor, honesty, midlife crisis, fathers and sons, aging — and a bunch of great characters coming together yet again to do a far, far better thing than they have ever done before, or since.
Based on the 2010 book by Don Winslow, Oliver Stone’s Savages is a sort of Jules and Jim meets Breaking Bad by way of Pulp Fiction, Saw, and Blow but falls far short of all of those far superior works. Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star as childhood friends Chon, a former Navy SEAL with a violent streak just waiting to explode, and Ben, a surfer dude who is making the most potent pot around. They live with and share O (Blake Lively), a carefree woman who loves them both as they run an easygoing marijuana operation in Laguna Beach. When Elena “La Reina” Sanchez (Salma Hayek), head of the vicious Baja Cartel, gets wind of Chon and Ben’s extraordinary weed, she first sends her lawyer, Alex (Demián Bichir), to them to make a deal, but when they reject it, they next have to face the dark, brooding Lado (Benicio del Toro), who enjoys such things as torture and killing. As the film spins out of control, its only saving grace is the occasional appearances of John Travolta as Dennis, a pleasant but corrupt DEA agent who just might know a lot more than he’s telling. The primary problem with Savages is that it is filled with characters who are hard to care about in any way or have sympathy for at all, whether they’re over-the-top evil or treacly sweet. Each side calls the other savages, and because that is indeed true, the film feels lost from the start. Once again Stone shows himself to be an immensely talented but frustrating filmmaker choosing style over substance. But things significantly improve whenever Travolta is on-screen, playing Dennis with a wry sense of humor and un-Travolta-like hair.
Having given up on life following the death of his wife, wayward samurai Nomi Kanjuro (first-time actor Takaaki Nomi) roams nineteenth-century Japan with an empty scabbard, running away from confrontation while accepting the verbal wrath of his extremely embarrassed nine-year-old daughter, Tae (Sea Kumada). After surviving three fanciful and fantastical — and far too silly and stylized — attacks by a trio of oddball bounty hunters (Ryo, Rolly, and Zennosuke Fukkin), Nomi is arrested and brought to a castle where the boy prince has not cracked even the hint of a smile since the recent death of his mother. Nomi is faced with the 30-Day Feat — every day for a month, he has the opportunity to try to make the prince smile. If Nomi fails, he must commit a very public seppuku. And so begins a comic series of events in which the dour Nomi, who barely ever speaks, turns into a kind of dark clown, but it’s clear that it’s going to take something very special to end the prince’s dilemma. Written and directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto (Big Man Japan, 
When they were junior high school students in South Central Los Angeles in 1979, Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher formed the core of Fishbone, what would soon become one of the most exciting live bands on the planet. Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson document the band’s rise and fall — and rise and fall, and rise and fall, etc. — in the stirring Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. Using archival footage, old and new interviews, and playful animation, Metzler and Anderson follow the group — Moore and Fisher along with fellow founding members Chris Dowd, Walter “Dirty Walt” Kibby II, and Kendall Jones — through its many personal and financial struggles as it tries to deal with such socioeconomic issues as racism, violence, and the anti-liberal bias taking hold of the nation in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. Fishbone held nothing back on such albums as In Your Face (1986), Truth and Soul (1988), The Reality of My Surroundings (1991), Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993), and Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge (1996), mixing in pop, punk, funk, ska, reggae, R&B, soul, jazz, and hardcore, prancing about the stage without shirts, diving into the crowd, and always speaking their mind, and they hold nothing back in Everyday Sunshine as well. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, the film really picks up speed when it delves into the Rodney King beating and the mysterious circumstances involving Jones’s religious transformation and the band’s attempt at an intervention. The decidedly unusual tale also features an impressive lineup of talking heads offering their views on the history of Fishbone, including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, fIREHOSE’s Mike Watt, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, the Roots’ ?uestlove, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Primus’s Les Clayool, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Circle Jerk Keith Morris, Ice-T, and, perhaps most informatively, Columbia Records executive David Kahne, who lends fascinating insight into what made Fishbone great — and what kept them from greater success. While you definitely don’t have to know a thing about Fishbone to enjoy this very intimate documentary, longtime fans should eat it up. Everyday Sunshine is screening July 6 at 5:45 at Anthology Film Archives as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival and will be followed by a Q&A with Metzler. The festival runs July 5-8 at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and includes a bevy of concerts, film screenings, panel discussions, and other special events being held in honor of the classic Bowery club that hosted cutting-edge, alternative, punk, and indie bands from 1973 to 2006. Among the other films being shown are Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People, Keirda Bahruth’s Bob and the Monster, Sara Sugarman’s Vinyl, and Gorman Bechard’s Color Me Obsessed.
Director Susan Dynner examines the past, present, and future of punk rock in the fast-paced documentary Punk’s Not Dead. Punk rock broke wide open in the mid-to-late 1970s, as pierced and tattooed fans packed small, sweaty clubs to have the Sex Pistols spit on them and other bands scream about anarchy and chaos, railing against the establishment that had brought them Vietnam, suburban sprawl, bloated arena rock, and an uninspired mainstream society. Bands such as Bad Religion, the Damned, Social Distortion, Minor Threat, and UK Subs used shrieking guitars, killer drums, and a nonstop verbal barrage that, as Dynner points out, never went away; thirty years down the road, many of these bands are still together or have re-formed, appearing in underground clubs and on indie records. Punk influence saw a revival in the 1990s, with Nirvana, Green Day, and Rancid all hitting the charts, but the film argues that the current wave, which includes such groups as Good Charlotte, My Chemical Romance, and Sum 41 and stores such as Hot Topic, is more market-friendly pop punk than the real deal. Among those sharing their opinions on what qualifies as punk are Black Flag’s Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn, X’s John Doe, Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong (who also coproduced the film), Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra, the Subhumans’ Dick Lucas, Social D’s Mike Ness, and members of dozens of bands both old and new. The biggest revelation is the Adicts, a British band that has been doing it their own way, with the original lineup, for more than thirty years now, still bucking the system and attracting a whole new generation of fans. Punk’s Not Dead also includes snippets of hundreds of songs that will send you poring through your record collection to find those old gems you haven’t listened to since you were in college. Sham 69’s “If the Kids Are United” fabulously sums things up over the closing credits. Punk’s Not Dead is screening July 6 at 10:45 at Anthology Film Archives as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival. The festival runs July 5-8 at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and includes a bevy of concerts, film screenings, panel discussions, and other special events being held in honor of the classic Bowery club that hosted cutting-edge, alternative, punk, and indie bands from 1973 to 2006. Among the groups participating in the festival are Sick of It All, Redd Kross, Reggie Watts, Quincy Mumford & the Reason Why, JD Samson & Men, PS I Love You, DJ Jonathan Toubin, Lissy Trullie, the Van Allen Belt, LA Guns, Sic F*cks, the Virgins, and Michael Cerveris & Loose Cattle, and that’s just on Friday.
Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s second Infernal Affairs film is reminiscent of The Godfather Part II, as the story moves back and forth through several pasts as we learn more about Ming (Edison Chen), Yan (Shawn Yue), Wong (Anthony Wong), and Sam (Eric Tsang). Some roles are played by the same actors as in the first film, and some are not, so pay close attention. As Hong Kong approaches the hand-over to Chinese rule, the Triad war is threatening to explode, with Ming and Yan caught in the middle. Infernal Affairs 2 is an unforgettable film, gorgeously shot by Lau (who cut his teeth as cinematographer on such films as Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Ringo Lam’s City on Fire) and Ng Man Ching (Once Upon a Time in China). Much like the second Godfather film, even though you know what becomes of many of these characters, finding out about what got them there is absolutely thrilling. We love every glorious second of this movie. Don’t miss it.