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Super Young Adult releases Mazzy
Local producer Super Young Adult has been busy this year working on releases with Pony Logan (also known as Easy Tiger), and executing vapor wave-tinged pop singles like “Bonsai” as Cop Kid, which also includes the efforts of usual solo-ist Marny Proudfit. Proudfit also shows up at the very end of the 13-track Mazzy, a track that’s consistent with the rest of the album, a pop effort that sounds like the work of a multi-talented producer.
Come Play ***
Alfred Hitchcock’s “refrigerator logic” certainly applies to writer/director Jacob Chase’s horror feature—not because its plot doesn’t make sense when you think about it, but because its ostensible thematic ideas feel ill-conceived. There’s still plenty of satisfyingly creepy style in this story of Oliver (Marriage Story’s Azhy Robertson), a non-verbal boy with autism whose parents (Gillian Jacobs and John Gallagher Jr.) have a marriage that’s struggling, and who finds most of his connection through screens.
In which direction does Sacha Baron Cohen punch? That’s a valid question when approaching the brand of guerrilla comedy he employs when taking to the streets in character—as hip-hop poseur Ali G, as flamboyant fashionista Brüno Gehard, or as his most famous creation, Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev.
Local group Memphis McCool is all about the bit, and the bit by their standards. Their music follows the simple themes of color while referencing a rather complicated cocktail of a certain jazzy bluesy rock ‘n’ roll born in the ‘90s that somehow still references the ‘80s in style.
Over the Moon, David Byrne's American Utopia, Totally Under Control, Clouds and more
2 Hearts **
There’s a place in cinema for tear-jerkers, but it gets a bit frustrating to sit through something that’s effectively pulling out your nostril hairs one at a time for 100 minutes to make sure the eyes are wet. The fact-based story follows two mostly parallel romances: between rum manufacturing scion Jorge (Adan Canto) and flight attendant Leslie (Radha Mitchell), and between college students Chris (Jacob Elordi) and Sam (Tiera Skobvye).
The Trial of the Chicago 7, On the Rocks, Hubie Halloween, The War With Grandpa and more
The 40-Year-Old Version ***
Frisky, messy and funny as hell, writer/director/star Radha Blank's film is its own best evidence for an artist to take full control of their creative life. Her character is what seems to be a thinly-veiled version of herself, a playwright once lauded as a “30 under 30” prospect but now approaching her 40th birthday, teaching high-school drama students just to pay the rent.
City Weekly has mentioned the now super-present phenomena of skate culture in SLC a few times now, and the roller-skating craze seems to have no end in sight.
The Glorias, Save Yourselves!, Dick Johnson Is Dead, Possessor and more
The Boys in the Band **1/2
Mart Crowley’s 1968 play The Boys in the Band is an odd sort of time capsule to attempt to bring into the 21st century; it’s hard for the pre-Stonewall rage and self-loathing it evoked to play as more than melodrama. This film version with the cast of the 50th-anniversary stage revival—itself on the 50th anniversary of William Friedkin’s original film version—places several gay friends in the New York apartment of Michael (Jim Parsons), gathering for the birthday of Harold (Zachary Quinto).