OKLAHOMA CITY — With the summer movie season in full swing, you might be inclined to think that city cinemas are all overloaded purely with loud, bombastic Hollywood fare designed only for shock and awe.
But while screens are surely currently loaded with mindless actioners, comic book heroes, and a weird amount of summer season horror offerings, there’s also a surprising number of unexpectedly boundary-pushing, under-the-radar foreign films storming our shores.
American audiences are likely to think of foreign movies as hushed, quiet, subtitled affairs. But the international picks invading OKC in July and August are just as magical, raucous, and surreal as anything we Yanks might cook up.
So once you’re finished with all the colorful spandex and fake southern accents filling multiplexes this season, check out some of these other accents popping up in city screenings soon.
‘Man and Witch: The Dance of A Thousand Steps’ – Cinemark Tinseltown and AMC Quail Springs – Sunday, July 28th & Tuesday, July 30th
Okay, this is a particularly odd and potentially little-known release in the US.
This mostly Scottish production is ostensibly a throwback homage to 80s-kid cult fantasies like “Willow,” “Krull,” and “Labyrinth,” but the real background and origin of “Man and Witch” actually lies in its writer and stars.
Acting as both screenwriter and leading man is Greg Steinbruner, who wrote the family-friendly fantasy as a vehicle for his wife, Tami Stronach, who plays the titular Witch navigating an unexpectedly magical and romantic adventure with Steinbruner’s Goatherd.
If Stronach’s name doesn’t ring any bells, then her resumé will, especially for the 80s fantasy crowd that “Man and Witch” is aiming for.
That’s because she portrayed the famous Childlike Empress in the original 1984 “NeverEnding Story” before largely bowing out of the limelight and eventually raising a family with Steinbruner.
“Man and Witch,” then, is tailor-made for the lately lucrative 80s cult crowd, even featuring sci-fi/fantasy royalty like Christopher Lloyd and Sean Astin.
Goofy? Ridiculous? Maybe.
But it looks like the kind of kid-friendly and adult-heartening film that the big American studios frankly feel afraid of taking a gamble on these days.
While it’s set for a wider release in the UK, the American distribution rights were snatched up by limited event brand Fathom Events, who are dropping the magical family adventure in theaters across the US for just two nights only, on the 28th and 30th.
For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit cinemark.com and amctheatres.com.
‘The Human Surge 3’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – Thursday, August 1st
Argentine filmmaker Eduardo Williams’ surrealist sequel to 2016’s “The Human Surge” arrives with even more unsettling international detachment and dissociation than the first installment.
And in case you’re wondering, no, there was never a “Human Surge 2.”
Everything about the film – including and especially the unconventional and confusing numbering – is meant to destabilize you and knock you off your own global and psychological axis.
Focusing on small social groups in economically desperate and marginalized communities around the world from Taiwan to Sri Lanka to Peru, Williams films their cryptic and strangely interconnected interactions entirely with 360-degree VR cameras, then flattens the picture for the traditional cinema screen.
The result is an image that continuously feels as warped and off-kilter as the mysteriously dreamlike, impenetrable story being told.
As dialogues begin to mirror and interweave, as digital worlds and communications begin to bleed together, and as all physical distance and global barriers begin to lose all meaning, Williams’ surreal statements about the hyper-modern human condition start to take shape.
For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit okcmoa.com.
‘Kneecap’ – Harkins Theatres Bricktown – Opens Friday, August 2nd
Anti-authority hip-hop, street-punk mentalities, and Hollywood heavyweight Michael Fassbender would all have you believing that this is a timely treatise on modern America, but that’s only because you might never have heard of the controversial Irish rap sensation that is Kneecap.
The trio crashed onto the European scene hard in late 2017 with tracks rapped and titled in Gaelic and espousing pointed, anti-colonialist, Irish Republican anger and passion, making them stars to protest-minded UK audiences and pop-cultural enemies to Euro conservatives.
Now, shockingly, they’ve got their own internationally released feature film to present their story and beliefs to a young worldwide community recently hungry for their brand of radical sentiment.
Like some kind of controversy-courting, anti-government take on “A Hard Day’s Night,” the members of Kneecap all play themselves alongside the unflinchingly watchable Fassbender, himself raised in Northern Ireland and a descendent of IRA hero Michael Collins.
If you want an uncompromising look at modern Irish streetlife, a crash course in lingering and divisive Irish cultural tensions, or just an immersion into the Gaelic language itself, give this one a look.
For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit harkins.com.
Catch Brett Fieldcamp’s film column weekly for information and insights into the world of film in the Oklahoma City metro and Oklahoma. | Brought to you by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
