This Trailer Ain't Big Enough For Both of Us

Contained thrillers are a staple of modest-budget filmmaking, those tense stories built around an economical, manageable setting... but who needs another cabin in the woods? A lean, mean chamber mystery that makes a virtue of its claustrophobic confines, Brock Bodell's feature debut Hellcat introduces us to a discombobulated woman (Dakota Gorman) as she wakes up in a moving camper with a festering wound, a mysterious voice crackling at her through a taxidermied coyote head, and a ticking clock. You might see the nightmare gambit coming, but it's a clever and propulsive ride, anchored by Gorman's fierce, grounded intensity.

For over fifty thrilling, weird and essential years, Sparks have been pop's most brilliant and unclassifiable contrarians. As lionized in Edgar Wright's documentary The Sparks Brothers, synth maestro Ron Mael (the one with the mustache, 81 years young this week!) and falsetto-belting frontman Russell Mael (the one with the energy) have built a singular, ever-shifting catalog blending glam, new wave, art rock, and operatic ambition. Russell's voice is as sharp and theatrical as ever on my favorite group's first full-band concert album, "Live on the Moon", a career-spanning deep dive with a playful lunar conceit, introduced from "space" by Cate Blanchett.

In the quiet breezes of Japanese cinema, all the melancholy, magic realism and heat seem to accelerate when you're growing up. That fleeting feeling is gathered across 12 features in Brooklyn Academy of Music's new series "Summer in Japan" (Aug 14-20), spanning seven decades from Ozu to Obayashi and beyond. But the true treasures are the repertory rarities not streaming anywhere: experience the legendary long takes of Shinji Somai's delirious teen odyssey PP Rider, Soushi Matsumoto's charming high school sci-fi comedy It's a Summer Film!, Yoshimitsu Morita's offbeat romance Main Theme, and Shinji Aoyama's angsty revenge thriller Helpless.

Budgetary Limitations Can Be Helpful Influences. Hellcat is an inspiring reminder that "contained" doesn't mean "limited," but focused. The best low-budget films don't fight their constraints; they weaponize them. Cinema nerds all know the near-doom backstory on Jaws, that Spielberg's mechanical shark didn't work, looked fake, kept breaking down. Deciding not to show "the great white turd" (as infamously nicknamed by the crew), Spielberg instead shot from the shark's POV, used John Williams' iconic score to suggest its presence, and let our imaginations do the rest. That's the lesson of the contained thriller. No budget for a car chase? Set it in a camper. Can't afford a big location? Make your locale the point. The obstacle isn't a failure of creativity, but possibly the raw material for it. Ask "what can we do with what we have?" ...and then get wild!