You hear a lot about the decline of the American film industry these days, and not just from blowhard has-beens looking to score political points by trashing anything that doesn’t conform to their idea of entertainment. On one level, there’s obviously something to this viewpoint—the dominance of big-budget franchise films, sequels, and remakes has, like an impenetrable leafy canopy, starved mid-budget genre films of the sunlight they need to prosper. As the Summer Movie Season gears up to deliver one superhero/spy/stage-magician epic after another, it’s worth noting that there are still engaging flicks to be found on the forest floor, and sometimes in the places you’d least suspect.

The new action film Fight or Flight, for instance, looks forgettable on its face. We’ve seen the setup before, most recently with Brad Pitt in Bullet Train: a one-man army ends up confined in a mode of rapid transport amid a battalion of trained killers and needs to punch/kick/shoot/stab his way to survival. Here, instead of Brad Pitt, we get Josh Hartnett, who, no disrespect intended, is no Brad Pitt. And instead of high-speed rail, we get a double-decker luxury airliner travelling from Bangkok to San Francisco. The setup, to the extent it matters, is that Lucas Reyes (Hartnett), an exiled ex-Secret Service agent, is roused from drunken lethargy by his former superior officer (a nearly unrecognizable Katee Sackhoff) to hop on said jet and collect a mysterious cyber-terrorist known only as The Ghost. Once on board, he quickly discovers that the majority of his fellow passengers are assassins determined to collect a bounty by killing the person he’s been instructed to bring in alive.

James Madigan is a visual-effects and second-unit veteran making his feature directing debut, and he kicks things off with an in media res cacophony of violence involving a trio of female martial artists, a hurtled chainsaw, and of course, a blown-out section of the cabin. We then flash back twelve hours to find our bedraggled hero called into action, eventually with the assistance of two overwhelmed flight attendants (Charithra Chandran of Bridgerton and Danny Ashok), one of whom is more than they appear. The mayhem is inventive, making use of almost every item one would find on a passenger plane, from the beverage cart to the seatbelts, to inflict grievous and gory bodily harm. And the plot, as vestigial as it is, manages to incorporate enough of a social justice angle to keep Fight or Flight from being just another nihilistic spectacle. But it’s Hartnett’s affably unhinged demeanor that carries the movie. Following his lead role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap last year, the onetime heartthrob of The Virgin Suicides and Pearl Harbor is having a moment, one that seems imbued with the wisdom that comes from a couple of decades spent in the relative Hollywood wilderness. This isn’t a great film, but it’s at least as enjoyable as the inspirations it wears proudly on its bloody sleeve. (Opening wide.)

Another example of solid work that risks running under the radar in the hypertrophic theatrical landscape is the riveting psychological thriller Sharp Corner, the second feature from writer-director Jason Buxton. Josh (Ben Foster) and Rachel (the unageing Cobie Smulders) have just moved from The City to a rural homestead to raise their young son Max. On their first night in the place, however, their conjugal bliss is rudely interrupted when a car veers off the road and into their front yard, sending a tire through their front window and killing the driver. While Rachel, a counselor, would prefer to put the trauma behind the family, Josh is haunted by witnessing the fatal crash. He makes an effort, at first, to enhance the safety of the tight bend that makes the route such a dangerous one. But after another similar incident weeks later, he becomes obsessed with preparing to save the lives of seemingly inevitable future victims. He starts taking CPR classes on the sly, neglecting his job, and ignoring the pleas from his wife that, for their son’s sake, they need to sell the place and move somewhere that isn’t a nexus for vehicular death.

Foster delivers a creepily good performance as a milquetoast who becomes increasingly intent on proving his own masculinity and value, if not to his family, then to the world at large. His flat accent, reminiscent of William H. Macy’s memorable Minnesotan in Fargo, can cover his compulsive behavior for only so long. He’s a consistently undervalued actor who here does his best work since the 2018 Portland-set Leave No Trace, where he similarly played a father going to extremes to protect those he sees as vulnerable from a dangerous world. Sharp Corner is based on a short story by Canadian writer Russell Wangersky, but it feels like it could just as easily have been pulled from the mind of Paul Schrader, another chronicler of the ways men cope (usually badly) with the world around them.

It’s worth noting that both Fight or Flight and Sharp Corner are distributed by Vertical Entertainment, which is one of several companies that operate in the abandoned middle ground between the major studios (Disney, Warner Brothers, etc.) and the artsy outfits that churn out award bait (A24, Neon, etc.). Along with Greenwich Entertainment, Bleecker Street Media, and a few others, it’s a name that’s probably not familiar to most moviegoers since it doesn’t have a definable brand or control massive IP. But these stalwarts provide a home for relatively modest, sometimes high-quality efforts in a way that’s increasingly rare. (Available on demand.)

I Know Catherine, the Log Lady: It feels as if the last five months have been a continuous period of mourning following the death of David Lynch on January 8, and this in-depth look at one of his lifelong collaborators may serve as another step on the healing journey that all true cinephiles have been experiencing. Catherine Coulson is, of course, known best as Margaret Lanterman, the Log Lady from Twin Peaks, but she’d been in Lynch’s orbit since virtually the beginning, when she was married to Jack Nance (the star of Eraserhead and player of Pete Martell on Twin Peaks). Nance, the troubled actor who died in 1996, received his own posthumous documentary portrait with 2002’s I Don’t Know Jack, and this film incorporates several interview snippets from that one. It also takes a similarly candid approach, especially as it relates to Coulson’s diagnosis with Stage 4 lung cancer and her efforts to complete her performance in Twin Peaks: The Return before she died. Director Richard Green garnered interviews with Kyle MacLachlan, other Peaks cast members, and Lynch himself, as well as many folks Coulson worked with during her time living in Ashland and working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It’s fascinating to hear Ashland-based director Gary Lundgren and producer Annie Lundgren (Calvin Marshall, Above the Trees) discuss their involvement in capturing Coulson’s final on-camera work, just as it’s a revelation to hear about Coulson’s work as a camera operator for John Cassavetes and other filmmakers in the 1970s and ’80s. The film shifts a bit too frequently and abruptly between Coulson’s early career and her final months, but it’s still a must-see for those of us who still maintain that the owls are not what they seem. (Wednesday, May 14, Hollywood Theatre; opens Friday, May 16, Kiggins Theatre)

Secret Mall Apartment: I mean, the title says it all. In 2003, a group of intrepid Rhode Island artists and scalawags infiltrated the newly constructed Providence Place shopping mall and, in an unused pocket of space, created a livable area complete with couch and television. They kept this up, amazingly, for three years before (spoiler alert!) being eventually found out. (If they hadn’t been before, the release of this film would probably have done the trick.) From that now-twenty-year-old piece of, I guess, performance art, Director Jeremy Workman has spun an admiring if somewhat insubstantial documentary that profiles the individuals involved and attempt to situate the stunt as a sidelong protest against gentrification and the displacement of artists and other unwilling participants in the capitalist project. The undisputed hero of the piece is Michael Townsend, whose life has been dedicated to healing trauma and inspiring people through art. (He and colleagues have done other public works honoring the victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks.) While the feature-length tribute runs a bit thin—a life-size recreation of the forbidden residence probably wasn’t needed—the story and, more importantly, the ideas behind Secret Mall Apartment deserve the exposure. (Cinema 21, Darkside Theater in Corvallis; also screens at the Tomorrow Theater on May 23.)

Magic Farm: Writer-director-star Amalia Ulman goes after low-hanging fruit in this satire about a Vice TV-style band of New York video journos who travel to a remote South American village to exploit the latest “crazy” cultural practice they think they’ve discovered: a local, bunny-costume-wearing musician whose videos have recently gone viral. The only trouble is that they’ve landed in the wrong San Cristobal, and the Argentinian locals have no idea what they’re talking about. At wit’s end, the crew (Ulman, Alex Wolff, and Joe Apollonio) and the semi-famous host (Chloë Sevigny, making her 2nd straight appearance in FilmWatch), on instructions from their producer back in New York (Red Rocket’s Simon Rex) decide to fabricate some weirdness. This isn’t too challenging, considering the dilapidated hamlet is populated by a menagerie of unique characters, several with physical differences that may or may not have resulted from the nearby spraying of toxic pesticides. Juxtaposing the simple goodness of these uncultured folks with the self-involved toxicity of the American interlopers is like shooting hipsters in a barrel. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch, at least for some of the film’s modest 90-minute running time. (Regal Fox Tower)

Clown in a Cornfield: Here’s another one where the title kind of says it all. You’ve seen all the horror films about scary clowns. You’ve seen all the horror films set in creepy cornfields. But have you seen any horror films with a scary clown in a creepy cornfield? No, you have not. And, honestly, you don’t really need to. This effort from director Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) is so by-the-numbers that I honestly couldn’t tell if it was satirizing genre tropes or just slavishly following them. When teenaged Katie (Quinn Maybrook) and her widowed father (Aaron Abrams) move back to his rural hometown, she’s quick to fall in with the popular, annoying crowd who make YouTube videos in which the mascot of the local, bygone, agricultural industry, Frendo the Clown, is depicted as a marauding killer. The town’s fortunes have deteriorated, and the cool kids have been blamed for a recent factory fire that put many residents out of work. That all sets the stage for the emergence of a gaggle of garishly clad, chainsaw-wielding circus jesters to chase our hapless adolescents through tall fields of Midwestern gold. If this is a parody, it’s a toothless one, and if it’s trying to shock, it should have tried harder. Maybe the novel it’s based on is better, but I’m holding out for Zombie in a Funhouse. (Opening wide.)

Also this week

(Opening 5/9 unless otherwise indicated)

April: “Nina, an OB-GYN, faces accusations after a newborn’s death. Her life undergoes scrutiny during the investigation. She persists in her medical duties, determined to provide care others hesitate to offer, despite risks.” (Living Room Theatres)

The Code: “A sexless couple, paranoid about the status of their relationship, embraces surveillance, spying and performance as a means to fall in love again, in this absurd, high-concept comedy.” (Saturday 5/10, Cinemagic, with director Eugene Kotlyarenko in attendance)

Japanese Avant-Gard Pioneers: “Amidst the profound social change and political turmoil of post-war Japan, a bold generation of avant-garde artists and photographers emerged in the 1960s, forever transforming the global art landscape.” (Wednesday 5/14, Hollywood Theatre)

Juliet & Romeo: “Based on the real story that inspired William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, follows the greatest love story of all time, set as an original pop musical.” (Regal Fox Tower, Bridgeport Village, and other locations)

Lilly: “An emotional drama about a courageous factory worker (Patricia Clarkson) who fights for justice when cheated and mistreated by her company. Based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter.” (Living Room Theaters)

Nonnas: “After losing his beloved mother, a man (Vince Vaughn) risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers (Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, Brenda Vaccaro) as the chefs.” (Netflix)

Shadow Force: “An estranged couple (Kerry Washington and Omar Sy) with a bounty on their heads must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer, a unit of shadow ops that has been sent to kill them.”

Summer of 69: “Abby (Sam Morelos) seeks to impress her crush by learning a specific sexual position, enlisting a stripper’s (Chloe Fineman) help. However, she realizes true self-discovery and lasting friendship are more valuable.” (Hulu)

Repertory

The Clinton Street Theater kicks off a two-week tribute to Roger Corman with a lineup that includes the incredible Edgar Allan Poe adaptations he directed in the early 1960s; the Hollywood Theatre welcomes comedian Jon Wurster to introduce a screening of an Albert Brooks masterpiece Real Life; the Academy Theater trots out a rarely-seen piece of British horror; and PSU’s 5th Avenue Cinemas showcases a vintage primer on guerilla resistance. Those details and more below:

Friday 5/9

• Batman Forever [1995] (Kiggins Theatre, through 5/11)
• The Battle of Algiers [1966] (5th Avenue Cinemas, through 5/11)
• Donnie Darko [2001] (Hollyw0od Theatre, on 35mm, through 5/11)
• Eye of the Devil [1968] (Academy Theater, through 5/16)
• The Fall of the House of Usher [1960] (Clinton St. Theater)
• The Fast and the Furious [2001] (Academy Theater, through 5/16)
• Funny Face [1957] (Kiggins Theatre, through 5/11)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion [2024] (Academy Theater, through 5/16)
• The Tomb of Ligeia [1964] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Top Hat [1935] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Troop Beverly Hills [1989] (Living Room Theaters, through 5/16)

Saturday 5/10

• Brief Encounter [1945] (Cinema 21)
• The Raven [1963] (Clinton St. Theater)
• The Terror [1963] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Twister [1996] (Tomorrow Theater)

Sunday 5/11

• A Bucket of Blood [1963] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Every Little Thing [2024] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Grey Gardens [1975] (Tomorrow Theater)
• X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes [1963] (Clinton St. Theater)

Monday 5/12

• Detour [1945] (Kiggins Theatre)

Tuesday 5/13

• Invisible Armour [1977] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)
• The Trip [1967] (Clinton St. Theater)

Wednesday 5/14

• Gardens and Goblins: Czech Animation (Clinton St. Theater)

Thursday 5/15

• Aftersun [2022] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Real Life [1979] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Starcrash [1979] (Clinton St. Theater)