STONER COMEDY/SHROOMS/WOMEN
Babes
Best known for the stoner TV series Broad City, Ilana Glazer has since written, produced and starred in two films: False Positive (2021) and Pamela Adlon's women's comedy, released in May. Besties Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Survival of the Thickest's Michelle Buteau) in New York. Dawn's married to Marty (Hasan Minhaj); they have one child and second is delivered in the movie's first 10 minutes. The single Eden meets an actor, Claude (Stephen James), on the subway and they hit it off. She gets pregnant and also has the baby.
Between the two deliveries, Eden and Dawn take mushrooms. "You got any butter I can sauté them with?" Dawn asks. "I need a little nosh with my shrooms."
"Shrooms have been making me so paranoid," confides Eden who works at Fourth Floor Walk-Up Yoga, "The last time I did them I freaked out that I was pregnant. I bought dozens and dozens of pregnancy tests. I took like 30."
It's a cute movie with a multi-racial cast, but lacks sufficient supporting roles, like Eden's whacky Dr. Morris (John Carroll Lynch), down-beat father Bernie (Oliver Platt) and a cameo by the Lucas Brothers, to make things more interesting.
Box office: $3.8 million
Similar to: Smiley Face (2007)
Watch at Hulu
MUSIC/BIOPIC/WOMEN
Back to Black
Amy Winehouse's vexing rise and fall is the subject of Sam Taylor Johnson’s biopic. The British R&B singer died at 27 in 2011. Just three years earlier she swept the Grammys.
Amy, brilliantly portrayed by Marisa Abela, lived in her own world – one consumed with music, alcohol and impulsive moments. She couldn't handle the simultaneous rushes of fame and love; it overwhelmed her. Amy's often alone in the movie, a sad figure hitting London's cobblestone streets in search of the next drink and adventure.
Most of the music is from her Grammy winning 2006 album Back to Black and 2003 debut, Frank. Abela does all the singing despite not being a vocalist. She slurs the words like Winehouse, whose voice cut like a knife.
Box Office: $6.1 million
Similar to: The United States vs. Billy Holiday (2021)
Watch at Prime Video
MUSIC/DOC
Beatles '64
Nineteen sixty four was a big year for the Beatles. They arrived in New York on Feb. 7 to play The Ed Sullivan Show two days later. That tour also took the Fab Four to Washington, DC and Miami for a second Sullivan show. Director David Tedeschi neatly shuffles old Maysle Brothers footage of train travel, hotel rooms, press conferences and even Murray the K with current talking heads. It's too bad the focus is just on their first trip. The Beatles came back for a full-blown tour later in the year.
On Aug. 28, the lads had their historic session with Bob Dylan at the Delmonico Hotel where the famous folk singer turned them on to pot. This is not mentioned. The most smoking you see are a lot cigarettes by Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Otherwise, it was a pretty clean-cut, whirlwind American debut.
Similar to: The Beatles: Get Back
Watch at Disney+
STONER COMEDY/JEWISH/SHROOMS
Between the Temples
In Nathan Silver’s wry comedy, Jason Schwartzman plays clinically depressed cantor Ben who interacts with his younger self through a VHS tape of his bar mitzvah he brings to the home of Carla (Carol Kane). She helps him get over the death of his novelist wife, rediscover the voice he lost and form a touching relationship with his one-time music teacher. Carla brews up mushrooms in the form of a tea, and while the film doesn’t make it obvious, Ben experiencessome kind of epiphany as he starts conversing with his 13-year-old self on the static-laden screen. (Roy Trakin)
Box office: $2 million
Watch at Prime Video
