September at the movies often marks a transition from fun summer blockbusters to somber awards-season bait. This month’s new releases reflect this seasonal change: They include two true stories of morally questionable entertainment icons (Leni Riefenstahl and Chris Hansen), a long-anticipated adaptation of one of Stephen King’s most pessimistic novels, a politically charged Paul Thomas Anderson action flick and, for some much-needed levity, the return of Spinal Tap 40 years later.
‘Riefenstahl’
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German filmmaker Helene “Leni” Riefenstahl was best known for making promo films for the Nazi party during the 1930s, commissioned by Adolf Hitler himself. A new documentary from Andres Veiel studies the life of the now-deceased “Triumph of the Will” director, combining “footage from an infamous film career as the girl genius of Nazi propaganda” with “her post-war media confrontations with it,” said Daniel Jonah Wolpert at NPR. Was Riefenstahl complicit in the Nazi’s atrocities from her stance behind the camera? “Despite Veiel’s best efforts, any criminal evidence against Leni Riefenstahl remains tantalizingly circumstantial, even if the circumstances themselves were indisputably criminal.” (in limited theaters now)
‘The Long Walk’
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“The Long Walk” was not the first of Stephen King’s novels to be published — that was “Carrie” in 1974 — but it was the first he ever wrote, begun when the author attended the University of Maine in the late ’60s. Set in a dystopian version of the U.S. ruled by a totalitarian regime, the book tails a group of young men who compete in a grueling and fatal walking contest (you stop walking, you die; the sole survivor wins money).
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The big-screen adaptation from Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”) is “finally arriving in theaters after decades of failed attempts by the likes of George A. Romero and Frank Darabont,” said Alison Willmore at Vulture. The sad “spectacle of the Long Walk” is a “stand-in for capitalist expectations,” said Willmore, with its “conscripts literally marching themselves to death as sacrifices to fading American exceptionalism.” (Sept. 12, in theaters)
‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues’
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More than 40 years after “This Is Spinal Tap” satirized the rock industry in a now-iconic mockumentary about a (fake) English heavy metal band, director Rob Reiner has returned for the sequel, as have stars and co-writers Christopher Guest (who has been “essentially retired” for the last decade), Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. Reiner “once again plays documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi, who presumably has picked up a few tricks from the new wave of music documentaries that have proliferated on streaming services in recent years,” said IndieWire — but “can Reiner do for the age of Netflix and Apple TV+ celebrity docs what he did for ‘The Song Remains the Same’ and ‘The Last Waltz’ in the first film?” (Sept. 12, in theaters)
‘Predators’
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NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” was not a mere reality TV hit in the early 2000s — it also announced itself as a “protective public service” in which host Chris Hansen would bait, capture and humiliate dangerous pedophiles, said Guy Lodge at Variety. Neither a police officer nor a lawyer himself, Hansen nevertheless “cornered and questioned potential sex offenders” on camera with all the authority he could muster. And while the “show’s manipulations rendered most of its cases impossible to prosecute,” the series “delivered justice as the people preferred to see it: visibly, ruthlessly and on television.” “Predators,” a new documentary from director David Osit, questions the “public fascination with deviant criminal behavior that still hasn’t been sated” by today’s excess of true-crime content. (Sept. 19, in theaters)
‘One Battle After Another’
Thomas Pynchon is a notoriously challenging author to read, which translates into being a difficult author to adapt. But filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood”) did it once with “Inherent Vice” (2014) and has done it a second time with his latest film, “One Battle After Another,” based loosely on Pynchon’s “Vineland.” Moved from the ’80s to the present day, the story follows Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), a former member of a radical revolutionary group who lives off the grid with his daughter. “At such a politically polarized time, can a movie that touches on white supremacy, countercultural Black revolution and empathy for immigrants strike a chord with audiences?” asked Kyle Buchanan at The New York Times. In response to this query, star DiCaprio “emphasized that despite its politically fraught trappings, the real heart of Anderson’s film is its father-daughter story.” (Sept. 26, in theaters)
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