This week’s highlights include a trio of documentaries that take viewers from 1940s England to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to a Washington, D.C. penitentiary. They all rate viewing on the big screen (even though one is a Netflix exclusive), but only the first takes full, if vicarious, advantage of such a presentation.

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger is, pure and simple, a cinematic love letter from Martin Scorsese to a pair of filmmakers he credits as a huge influence on his own obsession with movies. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had one of the most fruitful and harmonious working relationships in film history, resulting in a run of nearly uninterrupted masterpieces between 1941’s 49th Parallel to 1951’s Tales of Hoffman. Their work during and after World War II captured the British spirit of resilience without descending into nationalism, and their use of Technicolor in films such as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes was an artistic pinnacle.

As in previous documentaries A Personal Journey Through American Movies and My Voyage to Italy, Scorsese’s intelligent, passionate narration, generally delivered straight to the camera, conveys an infectious enthusiasm. Just listening to the man talk makes you smarter about cinema through osmosis. Equally welcome is the opportunity to see clips from nearly every Powell-Pressburger production, which will have you salivating for more big-screen showings like the one the Hollywood held for A Matter of Life and Death last week. Seeing The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or Tales of Hoffman on their biggest screen in pristinely restored editions would be, like, really cool (hint, hint).

But maybe the best parts of Made in England are those with a personal touch. They include late-in-life joint interviews with the men, who seem to have been made for each other. Even as their partnership began to founder in the 1950s, neither seems ever to have had a bad word to say about the other, and they’re tickled at the re-evaluation and appreciation of their work in the 1970s. That resurgence was largely due to Scorsese, who recounts tracking down Powell at a point when he was living modestly and not working, and eventually arranging a trip for him to New York for screenings of his films. Scorsese (who, it must be said, did not direct Made in England, leaving that task to David Hinton) also demonstrates specific moments in his own work, including Raging Bull, that owe a debt to Powell and Pressburger’s work. In just over two hours, it’s a crash course in twinned auteurs who eternally remain ripe for rediscovery. (Hollywood Theatre, Monday-Wednesday)

Hollywoodgate opens with fascinating footage of Taliban members meandering through an abandoned US military (or maybe CIA?) base known as Hollywood Gate immediately following the withdrawal of American troops. “A lot of strange things here,” one says, not least the left-behind liquor in the mess hall and the Stairmaster in the fully equipped gym. There are also a bunch of computers (smashed) and aircraft (nonfunctional), and the occupiers soon realize that the logistics of running the place will be daunting.

German-based journalist Ibrahim Nash’at gained intimate but limited access to the Taliban military, particularly its air force chief and his primary aide, beginning the day after the Americans left. This sort of embedded reporting from inside the Taliban military is about as rare as footage inside North Korea, and similarly enlightening. One soldier casually and with astonishing ignorance refers to the recently departed foes simply as “the Jews.” Officers hatch a scheme to lure insurgents out of hiding and conduct a house-to-house search that will presumably involve torture, reflecting a paranoia about infiltration. The main narrative thrust involves trying to find men with the skills to repair and, ultimately, fly the American aircraft.

There’s no on-screen violence, and very little footage of everyday life, but the broadly interchangeable soldiers evince an unnerving, methodical calmness, perhaps an effect of their authoritarian sureness of their own righteousness. There’s a certain banality of evil vibe that makes these nearly interchangeable fundamentalists almost boring, but the fact that they’ll eventually make some use of the $7 billion in American materiel left behind is undoubtedly alarming. (Tomorrow Theater, Thursday 8/15)

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Coming on the heels of Sing Sing, Daughters is another film, this one a documentary, showcasing an unorthodox program that aims to help incarcerated men reclaim some of the humanity that the carceral state has drained from them. Here the focus is the somewhat cringingly named Date with Dads, which allows the daughters of men living in a Washington, D.C. prison to attend a daddy-daughter dance inside its walls. Directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae neatly divide the action between a first half, in which we meet four of the girls, who range in age from 5 to 15, and observe their fathers attending a mandatory 10-week parenting class prior to the event. The second half captures the dance itself, which, while inevitably encompassing some outdated gender norms, is an alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking experience. In a wise move, Patton and Rae then check in on the families for the next three years in a coda that’s just as emotionally potent as what’s come before.

As in Sing Sing, it’s evident how empowering a simple change of clothes from prison orange to, in this case, suit-and-tie can be. Also as in Sing Sing, the filmmakers refrain from exploring the reasons these men ended up behind bars, preferring to focus on who they are now and who they want to be going forward. I suppose if you’re the sort who wants to see nothing but punishment for people convicted of crimes, maybe you quibble with this sort of initiative. But it seems self-evident that by providing these men an opportunity, however brief, to experience the fatherhood they’re missing out on, the program can’t help but increase the odds that, once they’re home, they’ll do whatever they can to stay there. One more similarity with Sing Sing: there’s an excellent Oregon-made film that covers some of the same territory. That would be Brian Lindstrom’s Mothering Inside, about a family visitation program at Coffee Creek Women’s Prison. These films, and the efforts they capture, demonstrate that, despite our country’s seeming obsession with punitive methods, there are other ways to do things. (Streaming on Netflix)

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Dance First: Biopics about famous writers are always tricky, since writing itself simply isn’t very cinematic. The challenge is doubled when the subject is someone like Samuel Beckett, whose work takes minimalism and inaction as bywords. Fortunately for this film, Beckett led an eventful life, which comes unevenly to the screen under the direction of James Marsh, who won an Oscar for the documentary Man on Wire and guided Eddie Redmayne to another in The Theory of Everything. The movie opens at the 1969 Nobel Prize ceremony at which an elderly Beckett (Gabriel Byrne) is awarded the literature prize, an event the writer famously termed a “catastrophe.”

In reality, Beckett did not attend that ceremony, but it offers a lead-in to a series of conversations between Beckett and an imagined doppelganger as he reviews his life, basically in four stages. The first consists of his unhappy relationship with his domineering and disapproving mother; the second covers the fascinating period where he worked under the auspices of James Joyce (Aidan Gillen) and had a disastrous relationship with his disturbed daughter Lucia; the third finds him working with the French Resistance, meeting his lover and eventual wife Suzanne, and fleeing Paris ahead of the Gestapo (see? eventful!); and the last, the only portion in color, during his later years when he carries on an affair with a BBC producer.

The focus on Beckett’s generally fraught relationships with women provides an awkward frame, but the middle part of Dance First is compelling, thanks mostly to the performances of Fionn O’Shea and Leonie Lojkine as young Beckett and Suzanne, respectively. (Older Suzanne is played by the great French actress Sandrine Bonnaire.) This is when cinematographer Antonio Paladino’s black-and-white images are most effective, especially when Beckett and Suzanne are hiding out under open skies in southern France. The stuff with Byrne, by contrast, is underwhelming, perhaps because the idea of one of Ireland’s great contemporary actors playing one of its greatest literary heroes holds such promise. Still, while it won’t send many viewers rushing to pull Waiting for Godot or Endgame off the shelf, Dance First works well enough as an introduction to the events and environments that shaped one of the 20th century’s most emblematic authors. (Available to stream on demand beginning Friday 8/16)

The Big Bend: This unheralded indie drama has been bouncing around the festival circuit since its 2021 premiere at the Hawaii Film Festival. In it, Cory and Melanie (Jason Butler Harner and Virginia Kull) have driven from New Jersey with their two children to visit old college friends Georgia and Mac (Erica Ash and David Sullivan) who’ve built a home for themselves and their offspring in the West Texas desert. Early on, we learn that Cory has a “situation” he doesn’t want to share with their hosts, and that Melanie appears to be pregnant. The personal drama ends up eventually being eclipsed and exacerbated when one of the kids goes missing during a trip to a nearby national park, all the more treacherous since there’s an escaped convict on the loose. This all sounds very melodramatic, but writer-director Brett Wagner and the cast generally keep things grounded in recognizable reality. The movie takes a little while to find its footing, but even the sluggish early scenes reflect the awkwardness of reacquaintance between formerly close friends who haven’t seen each other for a while. (Regal Fox Tower)

BEST OF THE REST

The Conversation (Hollywood): A brand new 4k restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s second-best film? Gene Hackman ripping out floorboards? Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams strolling in the plaza? Harrison Ford as a bad guy? What more could you want? Makes you wonder what Harry Caul would think if he got his hands on today’s technology… Note: some showings are in the Hollywood’s big theater and some are in the upstairs rooms, so make your purchases accordingly. (Hollywood Theatre, Friday 8/16 through Sunday 8/18 plus Tuesday 8/20 and Thursday 8/22)

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Lake Michigan Monster: Before there were Hundreds of Beavers, there was this maiden feature from the slapstick masterminds Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and Mike Cheslik. In typically Guy Maddin-meets-Looney Tunes fashion, this one follows an obsessed sea captain who recruits a motley crew to pursue revenge against the nautical menace that killed his father. Guffaws galore ensue. (Clinton Street Theater, Tuesday 8/20)

Bringing Out the Dead: The highlight of this week’s selections at Cinemagic’s “Repmaggedon” is an opportunity to see Martin Scorsese’s relatively neglected 1999 ambulance thriller, starring Nicolas Cage as a haunted EMT who proceeds to lose his shit over a manic three-day span. Adapted by Paul Schrader (who knows a thing about haunted urban drivers) from Joe Connolly’s novel. (Cinemagic, Tuesday & Wednesday 8/20 & 8/21)

La Haine: Three young men—one Jewish, one African, one Arab—deal with life in the ghetto of the Parisian banlieue on the day after a violent protest in Matthieu Kassovitz’s incendiary 1995 feature. Could be reductively described as a French Do the Right Thing, and the film that made Vincent Cassel a star. An early flashpoint in cinema’s confrontation with European immigration and its discontents. (Academy Theater, Friday 8/16 through Thursday 8/22)