FilmWeek: ‘Vengeance,’ ‘Sharp Stick,’ ‘My Old School,’ ‘Thirteen Lives,’ And Many More

Published July 29, 2022 at 9:27 AM PDT

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Boyd Holbrook (left) wears khakis, a brown belt, a wife beater and a tan button-down shirt that is unbuttoned. He stands with one hand on his hip, and looks off to the right of the image out of the screen. To his right, B.J. Novak stands about 3 feet away, in black pants with an off-white V-neck with a white button-down shirt, also unbuttoned. He has one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone out to Holbrook to record his voice. They are viewable from the waist up, with some of Holbrook's upper legs showing. IN the background, a white-sand lot the two stand in gives way about halfway up the image to an empty field with light arid shrubbery. On the white sand patch: two oil derricks and a breaker box. — (L to R) Boyd Holbrook as Ty Shaw and B.J. Novak as Ben Manalowitz in VENGEANCE, written and directed by B.J. Novak and released by Focus Features. Credit: Patti Perret / Focus Features

FilmWeek: ‘Vengeance,’ ‘Sharp Stick,’ ‘My Old School,’ ‘Thirteen Lives,’ And Many More

FilmWeek Reviews 7.29.22

Guest host John Horn and KPCC film critics Amy Nicholson, Claudia Puig and Charles Solomon review this weekend’s new movie releases on streaming and on demand platforms.

“Vengeance,” Wide Release
“Sharp Stick,” The Landmark Westwood; Multiple Laemmle Theaters, Digital & VOD August 5
“My Old School,” Laemmle Monica Film Center [Santa Monica]
“Not Okay,” Hulu
“A Love Song,” AMC The Grove [La Brea]
“Skies of Lebanon,” Laemmle Royal [West L.A.]
“Resurrection,” Laemmle Glendale, Laemmle Monica Film Center[Santa Monica] & Laemmle NoHo [North Hollywood]; Digital & VOD August 5
“Thirteen Lives,” AMC The Grove [La Brea]; Streaming [Amazon Prime Video] August 5

John Horn’s Interview About ‘My Old School’ With Director Jono McLeod

FilmWeek Feature 7.29.22

In the mid 1990s, an unusual-looking student who called himself Brandon Lee appeared at the Bearsden Academy in Scotland. Unlike the other teenagers in his class, Lee looked much older and knew much more than his fellow students. Even more unlike his fellow classmates, Brandon Lee wasn’t even a teenager. In fact, he was in his 30s, and his name wasn’t Brandon Lee. The documentary “My Old School” chronicles this odd tale of deception, what might have motivated it, and how the ruse unraveled. The director of the documentary is Jono McLeod, who was a classmate of Lee’s at the time. Today on FilmWeek, KPCC’s John Horn sits down with McLeod to talk about this strange tale, and how he transformed the experience into a documentary.