“Tony”
Dominic Sessa plays a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain who arrives in Provincetown with ambitions of becoming a writer but instead stumbles into the chaotic, intoxicating world of restaurant kitchens. Directed by Matt Johnson, the film focuses on the summer that helped shape Bourdain’s identity long before “Kitchen Confidential,” television fame, and his eventual transformation into a global cultural figure. Emilia Jones, Leo Woodall, Antonio Banderas, and Stavros Halkias co-star, although the main attraction is seeing Johnson bring his scrappy, formally playful sensibility to a figure whose life has already inspired plenty of more conventional documentaries and biographical treatments.
Release Date: In theaters August 7 via A24.
“The Last House”
Greta Lee’s second film of the week is a far more claustrophobic proposition. She and Wagner Moura play parents who awaken to discover that their family has been mysteriously sealed inside its home. The doors cannot be opened, the windows cannot be broken, resources are dwindling, and an unknown force appears to be waiting outside. The contained setup marks a change of scale for Louis Leterrier, a filmmaker better known for larger productions such as “Fast X,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “Now You See Me.” Here, an ordinary family home becomes both a prison and a pressure cooker, with survival dependent on its inhabitants remaining united while fear and scarcity push them apart.
Release Date: Available to stream August 7 via Netflix.
“The End Of Oak Street”
A mysterious cosmic event tears an entire suburban street from the Earth and deposits it in an unknown location in “The End of Oak Street.” Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor lead the cast as members of the Platt family, who must work with their displaced neighbors to survive their suddenly unrecognizable surroundings. Maisy Stella and Christian Convery co-star. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell has previously transformed suburbia into both a supernatural hunting ground in “It Follows” and an elaborate paranoid puzzle in “Under the Silver Lake.” This time, he is operating on a much larger scale, physically uprooting the American neighborhood and seeing what remains once its assumptions of safety, familiarity, and permanence disappear.
Release Date: In theaters August 14 via Warner Bros. Pictures.
“The Rivals Of Amziah King”
Matthew McConaughey plays Amziah King, a charismatic Oklahoma beekeeper and bluegrass musician whose estranged foster daughter, Kateri, unexpectedly returns home. Played by newcomer Angelina LookingGlass, Kateri becomes involved in Amziah’s family business just as ruthless competitors begin threatening everything he has built. Writer-director Andrew Patterson demonstrated extraordinary control of atmosphere and regional specificity with “The Vast of Night,” and his follow-up expands into something considerably stranger: part crime thriller, part musical, part Western fable, and part family drama. Kurt Russell, Cole Sprouse, Owen Teague, Rob Morgan, and Tony Revolori round out the ensemble.
Release Date: In theaters August 14 via Black Bear Pictures.
“The Wrong Girls”
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star as two broke, permanently stoned friends whose unambitious routine is interrupted when they are mistaken for somebody else. That confusion apparently pulls them into a widening mess involving crime and people considerably more dangerous than either woman is prepared to handle. Written and directed by Dylan Meyer, “The Wrong Girls” has a promisingly disreputable comic setup and an appropriately eccentric supporting cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, Kumail Nanjiani, Tony Hale, and Zack Fox. Seth Rogen is among the producers, although the central attraction is Stewart and Shawkat being given room to play chaotic deadbeats together.
Release Date: In theaters August 14 via NEON.
