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Paul McCartney in \u201cMan on the Run,\u201d a documentary that looks at his post-Beatles years with his band Wings. Amazon MGM Studios via Bay City News.<\/p>\nCarmen Maura, Paul McCartney, and Jessica Chastain star in new releases, reviewed below, this week. Also on tap: films at BAMPFA.<\/p>\n
Maura, known for her collaborations with Pedro Almodovar, gives a must-see performance in \u201cCalle Malaga,\u201d Moroccan writer-director Maryam Touzani\u2019s enjoyable Spanish-language debut.<\/p>\n
Cowritten with Nabil Ayouch, Touzani\u2019s dramedy follows Maura\u2019s character, Maria Angeles, a Spanish widow in her late 70s who has spent her entire life in Tangier, Morocco. Maria\u2019s world is upended when her financially strapped daughter, Clara (Marta Etura), arrives from Madrid to sell Maria\u2019s beloved family home. Given a choice of moving to Spain with Clara or living in a retirement facility, Maria resourcefully hatches a plan of her own. Her journey to independence includes an unexpected romance.<\/p>\n
The movie lacks the emotional complexity of Touzani\u2019s \u201cThe Blue Caftan.\u201d Its mother-daughter material is particularly unremarkable.<\/p>\n
But Touzani\u2019s warmhearted but never sappy tone proves winning throughout, and, as in \u201cThe Blue Caftan,\u201d Touzani\u2019s flair for the romantic shines.<\/p>\n
The film also scores points for its portrayal of older people as deserving, dynamic, and sexual.<\/p>\n
Maura, for her part, makes it a sparkler. Displaying the comic gift that she brought to Almodovar\u2019s \u201cWomen on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown\u201d and \u201cVolver,\u201d she creates a delightful protagonist we\u2019d follow anywhere.<\/p>\n
Currently at Bay Area theaters.<\/p>\n
Paul McCartney in \u201cMan on the Run,\u201d a documentary that looks at his post-Beatles years with his band Wings. Amazon MGM Studios via Bay City News.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan on the Run,\u201d too, is a hard-to-resist comfort\u00a0 film \u2014 an appreciative ride through Paul McCartney\u2019s post-Beatles years.<\/p>\n
Directed by Morgan Neville (\u201c20 Feet From Stardom\u201d), the documentary focuses on McCartney\u2019s other band, Wings, formed in 1971 by McCartney following the release of two low-profile solo albums made after the Beatles\u2019 breakup.<\/p>\n
McCartney\u2019s fellow Wings members included Paul\u2019s wife and creative collaborator, Linda McCartney; guitarist Denny Laine; and a frequently changing handful of other players.<\/p>\n
McCartney\u2019s cozy family vibe and silly love songs displeased many, but Wings eventually achieved critical and commercial success, especially with its \u201cBand on the Run\u201d album and world tour.<\/p>\n
The film, which ends in the early 1980s with the demise of Wings and the death of John Lennon, isn\u2019t a penetrating or revelatory portrait of McCartney, who, it should be noted, is credited as an executive producer.<\/p>\n
But the wealth of archival materials it contains, including powerhouse concert footage and very-1970s news clips, make it clear that Wings was an impressive second act.<\/p>\n
Photographs by Linda McCartney; pop-culture tidbits like the \u201cPaul is dead\u201d rumors; and interviews, albeit in voice-over form only, with fellow musicians, family members, and McCartney himself, enrich the picture.<\/p>\n
Criticism comes from former Wings musicians, who say the band was Paul\u2019s show, and that, as members, they felt like nobodies.<\/p>\n
John Lennon\u2019s son Sean Ono Lennon, meanwhile, calls McCartney\u2019s often lambasted \u201cRam\u201d solo album a masterpiece. He also attributes McCartney\u2019s infamous \u201c(It\u2019s a) drag, isn\u2019t it?\u201d remark, in response to John Lennon\u2019s death, to shock, not callousness.<\/p>\n
Fans and newcomers alike should have a good time with this film, which, coming off a theatrical run, is available on Amazon Prime Video.<\/p>\n
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Isaac Hernandez as Fernando and Jessica Chastain as Jennifer share a romantic moment in Dreams. Greenwich Entertainment via Bay City News.<\/p>\n
The themes are relevant but the characters are too despicable for palatability in Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco\u2019s \u201cDreams,\u201d an immigration drama and erotic thriller exploring power, inequality, and geographical and moral border crossings.<\/p>\n
Jessica Chastain, who starred in Franco\u2019s \u201cMemory\u201d (2023), plays Jennifer, a wealthy San Francisco philanthropist and socialite who presents herself as immigrant-friendly. Jennifer operates a ballet school in Mexico City, where she has become torridly involved with talented young dancer Fernando (played by American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isaac Hernandez).<\/p>\n
Jennifer wants Fernando to stay in Mexico, where they can be together comfortably and legally, but Fernando decides to cross the border to pursue a career in this hilly city.<\/p>\n
Fed up when Jennifer refuses to acknowledge their relationship to the outside world, Fernando leaves.<\/p>\n
Exercising her power and privilege, Jennifer takes desperate action to reunite the pair.<\/p>\n
Additional developments involve a private investigator, deportation, and, defying credibility, the casting of Fernando in a major role in a San Francisco Ballet production.<\/p>\n
Initially showing potential to become an urgent and provocative drama about immigration and passion, the film degenerates into an ugly and violent slog of betrayal, revenge, and obsession.<\/p>\n
Neither the usually captivating Chastain, in icy mode here, nor Hernandez can make us care about these people, though Hernandez\u2019s amazing ballet moves enable us to take Fernando seriously as a deserving artist.<\/p>\n
Currently in Bay Area theaters.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Merchant of Four Seasons,\u201d from German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, playing Sunday, March 8, 2026, at BAMPFA. (BAMPFA)<\/p>\n
BAMPFA, in Berkeley, which presents programs of recent releases and restored classics, has several film series opening this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cFassbinder and the New German Cinema\u201d (March 6\u2013May 17) features films by the prolific Rainer Werner Fassbinder and other West German postwar directors. Coming up are Fassbinder\u2019s \u201cAli: Fear Eats the Soul\u201d (1974) on Friday, March 6, and \u201cThe Merchant of Four Seasons\u201d (1971), Sunday, March 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cIranian Cinema: From Aesthetics to Politics\u201d (March 7\u2013April 23) includes digital restorations of three classic films made by Iranian New Wave directors. \u201cThe Postman\u201d (1972), Dariush Mehrjui\u2019s modern, Iran-set adaption of playwright Georg Buchner\u2019s \u201cWoyzeck,\u201d screens Saturday, March 7.<\/p>\n
BAMPFA\u2019s African Film Festival (March 8\u2013May 9) presents stories from Africa and its diaspora. On Sunday, March 8: \u201cAfter the Long Rains\u201d (2023), Damien Hauser\u2019s coming-of-age drama centering on a Kenyan girl.<\/p>\n
Visit bampfa.org<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n The Mechanics\u2019 Institute, in San Francisco, will show the 1936 musical film \u201cSan Francisco,\u201d directed by W. S. Van Dyke and featuring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and a disastrous temblor, at 6 p.m. Friday. For more information, or to register, visit milibrary.org.<\/p>\n The post Movies: Maura, McCartney, Chastain lead new releases; BAMPFA spotlights world cinema<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carmen Maura, Paul McCartney, and Jessica Chastain star in new releases, reviewed below, this week. Also on tap:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-203518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}