FILM

Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend of May 31

King Ghidora is #1 kaiju: CONFIRMED.

Welcome back to "Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend."

This week, Godzilla smashes scaly monster bods with King Ghidora.

WIDE RELEASE:

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

The plot of Godzilla: King of the Monsters doesn't matter at all. The only thing that matters is that Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah are going to be smashing into each other for two hours, and King Ghidorah is the coolest kaiju, straight-up. This is the Godzilla movie you played out with your toys as a kid and that I still play out as a giant man-child, albeit very gently because all my Godzilla figures are mint-in-box.

Rocketman

Rocketman (2019) - Official Trailer - Paramount Pictureswww.youtube.com

Rocketman is a musical biopic about Elton John's rise to fame. Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) looks great as the larger-than-life musician, and early reviews have praised his performance. The color palette looks bright and vibrant, mirroring Elton John's glittery persona. If you're a fan of Elton John's music (honestly, who isn't?), this looks like one of the better musician biopics in recent years.

Ma

MA - Official Trailerwww.youtube.com

Ma's premise is so stupid. Like, inconceivably stupid. It's a horror movie where the killer is a random lady (Octavia Spencer, way too talented for this) who lets teenagers drink at her house, and the teenagers accept her invitation because apparently, they have never heard of stranger danger. If the entire conflict of a movie can be solved by everyone agreeing not to go to a stranger's house, is that even a conflict? I like terrible movies, though, so I kind of want to see it.

LIMITED RELEASE:

Always Be My Maybe

Always Be My Maybe | Trailer | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Co-written by and starring both Ali Wong and Randall Park (Fresh Off the Boat), Always Be My Maybe is a romantic comedy about two childhood friends who should probably end up together, except one of them is hooking up with Daniel Dae Kim and then Keanu Reeves. Ali Wong is a really great comedian, so it'll probably be pretty funny, and it's always great to see Randall Park getting more work, especially as a leading man. It's on Netflix this weekend, so definitely check it out.

Domino

DOMINO Official Trailer (2019) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brian De Palma Movie HDwww.youtube.com

Poor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau just can't catch a break. First, his entire character arc was destroyed in the final season of Game of Thrones. Now, he's starring in this absolute clunker. But how can you tell Domino is a clunker without even seeing it? Great question! Normally, action movies put high-octane action scenes in the trailer. Domino decided to go the much less established route and have a man falling very, very slowly from a low roof. Someone, please get Nikolaj Coster-Waldau a new agent.

CULTURE

Kate Bush’s Rocket Man Video is Like if Hillary Clinton Tried to Make a Stoner Anthem

Kate Bush is an incredible musician and "Rocket Man"is an incredible song. So what went wrong?

Kate Bush - Rocket Man - Official Music Video

Kate Bush is a very, very talented musician. "Rocket Man" by Elton John is a very, very good song. So where did Kate Bush's cover go wrong?

It could've slept peacefully in the 1990s, accumulating cobwebs and fading from public consciousness. But today, Bush decided to release the video of her cover officially for the first time—alongside the announcement that an album of her B-sides and rarities, called The Other Side, is coming out on March 8th.

Bush's "Rocket Man" starts out promisingly, with Kate wailing in her singular soprano over dreamy synths, albeit sounding a bit breathier than usual. But disaster strikes about a minute into the video, when the full band leaps in with a disorienting reggae rhythm and Kate steps into the spotlight with a ukulele, hips swaying side to side robotically. The first chorus ends with a flourish on a sitar, a sound effect that's unexpected, to say the least, especially in light of the Uilleann pipes, concertinas, and synths jingling away in the background.

Kate Bush - Rocket Man - Official Music Videowww.youtube.com

It's too many genres mixed together, and it fails to capture any of what makes Kate Bush and Elton John so virtuosic. This cover skips all that and instead features a Celtic-sounding fiddle solo three-quarters of the way through, which collides disorientingly with the reggae beat.

The mash-up of styles is an issue, but another problem is that the whole band seems to be having way too much awkward middle-aged fun. Maybe the trouble is that "Rocket Man" is such an emotional song, but Bush seems to be trying to turn it into a stoner anthem—which Young Thug actually did more successfully, with his appropriately spacious "High." That cover is initially disorienting, but it possesses the melancholy expansiveness that makes the original "Rocket Man" so extravagant and blissful to listen to.

Young Thug - High (ft. Elton John) [Official Audio]www.youtube.com

Bush's cover feels like convoluted abstract art rather than music. If she's really using reggae and hip-shaking to turn "Rocket Man" into a celebration of marijuana, she's doing it in a way that's almost as cringe-worthy as when Hillary Clinton said that she was "just chillin'."

There are many ways to read "Rocket Man." It's rife with metaphors and cosmic allusions. It could be about getting stoned, sure, but it's almost certainly also about loneliness, life on the road, and the isolation of fame. Bush's cover just ignored all this, it seems. Her first hit was about Wuthering Heights; she can understand words, and she chose to read "Rocket Man" this way.

What a lost opportunity. Imagine "Rocket Man," but with the intensity, elegance, and clarity of vision that defines every track on Hounds of Love, or almost every other track she has released. Certainly, the odd Bush stan will love this cover, but most music fans will question its existence—instead of questioning their existence, which is what anyone who listens to "Rocket Man" should do.

Elton John - Rocket Man (Official Music Video)www.youtube.com

There are a few shining exceptions. The image of Bush conducting a symphony of planets and fireworks is aesthetically gorgeous, and the few moments where she does unleash a flood of reverb and harmonies (at the very ends of the choruses) hint at what could have been, and why it became a No. 12 hit in 1991. But for the most part, listeners will be stuck feeling deeply uncomfortable.


Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York. Follow her on Twitter at @edenarielmusic.


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