Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Jacking and Jilling

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Adventures in Success

by Rachel Willis

Fair warning – this film may be the most unpleasant experience you’ll ever have with the female orgasm.

Writer/director Jay Buim, along with co-writers Susan Juvet and Rachel Webster, has crafted one of the most uncomfortable, meandering and sometimes funny mockumentaries with the film Adventures in Success.

Focusing on the group Jilling Off, we follow “energy transformationist” Peggy (Pegasus) Appleyard (Lexi Mountain) as she leads a group of men and women to the Catskills to harness the energy of the female orgasm in “the womb room.”

Joining this group is newbie Erica (Yaz Perea-Beltran). At first, Erica’s seeming skepticism makes her feel like our straight woman among these guys and gals who use terms like “economic ejaculate.” A hilariously uncomfortable scene involving the extreme invasion of Erica’s personal space by another member is one of the film’s highlights.

There are several scenes that are so uncomfortable you can’t help but laugh. Otherwise, you might spend most of the film squirming in your seat.

As Peggy, Mountain embraces the role of sex goddess guru, and the film is better for it. A personal highlight was Peggy’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, but it’s mostly a moment that doesn’t fit well into the overarching story. The movie is full of these, as if the writers didn’t know how to fill 90 minutes about a group whose sole purpose is ‘jilling off.’

Another downfall is the fairly large cast of characters – not just the Jilling Off members, but townspeople who pop up from time to time (many more than once), usually to give their two cents on the group who’s descended on their town. It’s hard to keep track of everyone.

The film tries to make you care about the members of the cult, but so much time is spent making fun of them it’s hard to feel sympathy for their struggles. Some films can strike a good balance, but Success never manages to do so.

The film sometimes offers a strangely empowering message about women’s sexuality and female pleasure. It’s too bad the filmmakers’ mocking tone buries it beneath a lot of silliness.

New In Theaters, Uncategorized

Mean Boys

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Mother Schmuckers

by Brandon Thomas

My relationship with gross-out humor is hit-or-miss. Like millions of other people around the world, I laughed uproariously as Cameron Diaz used the wrong “hair gel” in There’s Something About Mary. For 20 years, I’ve enjoyed the increasingly dumb antics of the crew from the Jackass films. On the other hand, Tom Green’s weirdo pet project Freddy Got Fingered remains one of the few movies I almost walked out of. Even revered cult classic Pink Flamingos has never been much more than a cinematic endurance test in my eyes.

Unfortunately for me, Belgian import Mother Schmuckers is less Mary and more Freddy with its unfunny bits and horrifically unlikable characters.

Brothers Zebulon and Issachar live a life of debauchery and chaos. When the two lose their mother’s beloved dog, they have 24 hours to find it or risk being thrown out on the street. Along the way, the two run afoul of a grocery store security guard, kill birds with a handgun, and parade a dead body around.

Mother Schmucker’s approach to comedy is throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Directors Harpo and Lenny Guit definitely aren’t afraid to try anything and everything, even if it means the vast majority of the gags (pun fully intended) fall flat. Everything from force-feeding feces to animal kink shows up at one point or another. This “anything goes” attitude might work for a prank or other kind of reality show, but as a narrative feature it just comes across as unfocused and lazy.

There’s a chaotic energy to Mother Schmuckers that’s undeniable. The movie’s visual aesthetic feels closer to a mid-90s skateboarding video than it does a traditional comedy. The camera moves around almost as fast as the brothers as they scurry from one catastrophe to the next. While it doesn’t necessarily make the movie any better, it does keep it from becoming a complete bore.

I don’t want to sound too puritanical, but brothers Issachar and Zebulon are two of the worst degenerates to ever grace the big screen. I doubt the Guits intended for audiences to embrace these moronic characters, but the lengths to which they go to make us actively hate them is almost impressive. I don’t for a second believe that movie characters need to be likable to be relatable, but these two live on a completely different plane of obnoxiousness and cruelty.

Mother Schmuckers is a pointlessly mean-spirited endeavor. Gross cinema can be good – heck, it can even be great! What it should never be, though, is cruel.

New In Theaters

Tinker Tailor Stylist Spy

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Huda’s Salon

by Matt Weiner

Western political thrillers have taken a big hit since the Watergate era and the fall of the Soviet Union. Not that there’s anything wrong with our homegrown paranoid style, but then a film like Huda’s Salon blows that all up with a shocking blend of tight suspense and cogent—and immediate—politics.

Emphasis on tight: After a few brief explanatory cards recapping what life in occupied Palestine is like for West Bank residents, director Hany Abu-Assad jumps right into an opening confrontation between two women that starts the clock on a lethal game of cat-and-mouse that brings together resistance fighters, spies, the Israeli secret service—and the women in society who are fighting a war for full independence on multiple fronts.

Salon owner Huda (Manal Awad) blackmails her clientele into sharing information with an Israeli secret service handler. Her latest victim, Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi), has the same qualifications as Huda’s other unfortunate choices: her husband “is an asshole.” Reem spends her days taking care of her baby daughter, while her nights seem to be spent tolerating the boorish Yousef (Jalal Masarwa), who treats her more as an object of ridicule than an equal partner.

Where Huda is aloof and fatalistic about her small part in the broader conflict, Reem’s emotional range is played to great effect by Abd Elhadi. From vulnerability and terror to rage and her own fight for dignity, Abd Elhadi’s Reem is a remarkable woman—victimized by both the occupation and the events Huda and the men in her life have forced on her, but unwilling to stop fighting to be free from it all and simply live her own life with her daughter.

It becomes an urgent fight for her life when Huda’s treason is uncovered by a band of resistance fighters, with Huda taken in for interrogation and Reem trying to keep her identity (and compromising photos) secret, lest she be considered a traitor as well. As Huda and her interrogator Hasan (Ali Suliman) come to a begrudging mutual understanding, Hasan’s men fan out to track down Reem based on her cell phone location.

Abu-Assad, who also wrote the film, pulls off a delicate balance between intrigue and message. As a heart-pounding espionage thriller, Huda’s Salon is a contemporary heir to vintage le Carré, with the Berlin Wall giving way to the West Bank barrier. The constant hum of helicopters and jets provide an omnipresent soundtrack of anxiety, along with the tight framing around Reem as her world starts to collapse.

But the personal, as anchored by the two lead actresses, is just as engaging as the political. The film’s point of view isn’t subtle, but it’s not heavy-handed either. As Huda says of events during her own interrogation, it is what it is. If that reflection makes you uncomfortable in the current moment, so be it.

New In Theaters

Love Story

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Lucy and Desi

by George Wolf

You’ll see famous faces expressing some well deserved admiration for the legendary subjects of Lucy and Desi, but none come close to eclipsing the voice of the face you never see: director Amy Poehler.

The love and respect Poehler has for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is evident in every frame, as she leans on a goldmine of archival footage to inform, entertain, and giddily geek out.

And the key to the family vault comes from daughter Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, interviewed poolside while explaining her parents’ fondness for filling countless audio tapes with thoughts and recollections.

What a gift for Poehler and veteran documentary writer Mark Monroe, who weave Lucy and Desi’s own voices around home movie footage, news reports, both classic and rarely seen TV clips, and those raves from admirers to cast a spell that nearly glows with warmth.

Poehler, in her debut doc, shows a fine instinct for knowing killer from filler. She’s able to remind us of Lucy and Desi’s trailblazing show biz greatness, teach us some things we may not know (they aired the first “re-runs”), and take us behind the scenes of both their work and home life, without wasting even one of the film’s ninety some-odd minutes.

And yet, whether or not you’ve seen Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos (and if you have, this is a necessary companion), it’s hard not to feel like Poehler is pulling one big punch. Here, the end of Lucy and Desi’s marriage is attributed to the pressures of running their iconic DesiLu studios. Desi may admit to late nights “at the track” and a general lack of moderation in life, but the rumors of his affairs are never addressed.

But it’s clear that to Arnaz Luckibill, her parents’ journey together (one that ends with a very touching phone call) is only about “unconditional love.” So it may be that getting her on board (Desi, Jr. is heard from briefly, and seen only in old clips) came with a stipulation.

If so, that’s a deal Poehler had to take. Much like Linda Ronstadt’s first person storytelling made The Sound of My Voice so compelling despite a refusal to discuss her relationships, seeing and hearing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz narrate their own lives is what gives the film the intimacy that enables it to soar.

Two people loved each other deeply, ’til the end. Those two people are legends for some damn good reasons. That’s the point of Lucy and Desi, and it’s one well taken.

New In Theaters

The Darkest Knight

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The Batman

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The question is plenty familiar.

“Who are you?”

But the answer isn’t the one we’re expecting, and it’s an early declaration that there’s a new cape in town.

“I am…vengeance.”

Talk about your dark knights. Director/co-writer Matt Reeves and star Robert Pattinson make Mr. Nolan feel like Mister Rogers in comparison. Anyone looking for the recent superhero giddiness of No Way Home will find none, while comic purists may finally discover the treatment they’ve been clamoring for all along.

For the rest of us, The Batman delivers a defiant, somewhat overstuffed vision, one that embraces darkness of theme and palette while crafting several truly dazzling visual set pieces.

Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In, Dawn of and War for the Planet of the Apes) wisely skips the backstory intro, giving us Bruce Wayne (Pattinson) some two years into his “Gotham Project.” Alfred (Andy Serkis) worries about the family finances, while Master Wayne is only interested in feeding his vigilante alter ego.

But while Bruce is watching the city, the mysterious Riddler (Paul Dano, taking the legendarily comic villain in a terrifying new direction) is watching The Batman, leaving personalized messages with each new assassination.

His puzzles draw Batman, Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and a resourceful waitress with hidden talents of her own (Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle) deep into the Gotham organized crime scene run by Carmine Falcone (John Tutturo ) and Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot (Colin Farrell under some astounding makeup). There is no shortage of characters at play, and Reeves struggles to justify all of them in one film.

At stake are long-held secrets about Gotham that the Riddler wants “brought into the light,” some of which will challenge what you think you know about the birth of the Bat. And that seems only appropriate for a film that challenges expectations of its genre with a narrative more reminiscent of Seven than anything we’ve seen from DC or Marvel.

So dark, and so rainy.

Pattinson’s Emo Batman works well within the structure and aesthetic Reeves develops. He carves out a very different crusader, one more introspective and heartbroken than righteous. This Bruce Wayne views the bat signal as both a call and a warning, and Pattinson is able to effectively keep the tortured soul’s head above self-pitying water.

Dano’s exceptional, Farrell’s fun, and Kravitz develops an intriguing antihero of her own. People talk about Joker’s lineage, but Catwoman is another iconic villain. Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway have all left their mark, but Kravitz sidesteps broad stroke villainy in favor of something nuanced and human.

But ultimately, what makes this film most interesting is the way Bruce Wayne struggles to justify the consequences that The Batman has had on Gotham, and the surprising side of hero worship. Where is the line separating savior and sinner? And who gets to draw it?

Reeves isn’t the first to pull Batman into these relevant questions, but he raises them with a commitment fierce enough to generate excitement for yet another trilogy. And though there’s no surprise waiting after the credits here, keep an eye out for a villain to be named later.

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Real Time Nightmare

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The Desperate Hour

by George Wolf

With a main character spending most of the film alone, interacting with other characters only through a cell phone, The Desperate Hour (previously titled Lakewood) has the look of a production born out of quarantine.

But writer Chris Sparling is just returning to his framework for Buried from 12 twelve years ago, and tweaking the specifics with some sadly recognizable plot points.

Naomi Watts is Amy, a suburban mom who’s taken a personal day off from work as the anniversary of her husband’s fatal car accident approaches. Amy sets off on a long jog to clear her head, and as she winds deeper through the wooded area surrounding her neighborhood, multiple police sirens give the fist clue that another tragedy has occurred.

Veteran director Phillip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence, The Quiet American, The Bone Collector) sets a nice hook, layering disorienting camera movements and increasingly frantic cell phone calls to convey Amy’s growing panic as more details become available.

There’s a shooter at her son Noah’s (Colton Gobbo) high school, the area is on lockdown, and the police want to know if Amy keeps any guns in the house.

It’s difficult to overstate how quickly this premise would collapse with a lesser talent than Watts in the lead. She’s emoting with a smart phone and voice actors, but damned if she doesn’t make Amy’s desperation downright palpable, subtly conveying the chilling realization that a uniquely American epidemic is no longer happening somewhere else.

As the real time ticks by, though, the organic tension gives way to increased contrivance and emotional string pulling more befitting a TV movie-of-the-week. And with a mid-credits epilogue that is well-meaning but simplistic and preachy, the final minutes of The Desperate Hour comes dangerously close to undercutting the seriousness of the film’s intentions.

But there’s no doubting Watts. It is her commitment that won’t let us turn away from Amy, or completely give up on this film.

New In Theaters

The Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts

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by George Wolf

Fair warning: you’re not going to find many laughs in this year’s crop of Live Action nominees. But these fantastic short films come from all over the world to deliver important and consistently compelling statements.

Ala Kachuu (Take and Run)

Kyrgyzstan 38 mins. Writer/director: Maria Brendle

A young Kyrgyz woman (Alina Turdumamatova, excellent) has dreams of pursuing higher education with a scholarship. But when she’s kidnapped and forced to marry, her quest for freedom runs counter to long held traditions. Filmmaker Maria Brendle calls attention to a shockingly common practice with a stirring, sympathetic narrative.

The Dress

Poland 30 mins. Writer/director: Tadeusz Lysiak

In rural Poland, Julka (Anna Dzieduszycka, heartbreaking) works as a maid and dreams of a better life. A handsome truck driver (Szymon Piotr Warszawski) stirs hopes for romance, so Julka searches for the perfect dress for date night. In just 30 minutes, writer/director Lysiak delivers a fully crafted take on loneliness with a devastating final shot.

The Long Goodbye

United Kingdom/Netherlands 13 mins. Director: Aneil Karia Writers: Aneil Karia, Riz Ahmed

During a busy, laughter-filled family gathering, a TV news report delivers subtle foreshadowing about the brutality that will soon be at the family’s front door. The question is “Where are you from?” Karia and Ahmed deliver the answer is blistering, defiant fashion.

On My Mind

Denmark 18 mins. Writer/director: Martin Strange-Hansen

Henrick (Rasmus Hammerich) stops in to a nearly empty bar for some badly-needed shots of whiskey. He spots a karaoke machine, and will not be denied the chance to be filmed singing “Always on My Mind.” Have the tissues handy for this lovely take on love, death, and the power of great song.

Please Hold

United States 19 mins. Director: KD Davila Writers: KD Davila and Omer Levin Menekse

In the near (very near?) future, a young man named Mateo (Erick Lopez) is walking to work when he’s arrested by a police drone threatening force. Unaware of the charges and desperate to talk to a human being, Mateo is thrust into a completely automated justice system with a focus on profit and proficiency. It’s thought-provoking, darkly comic and completely terrifying.

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Driller Killer

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The Burning Sea

by Hope Madden

Man, understatement makes all the difference.

We don’t often see understated disaster films. The idea seems counterintuitive. We need greedy villains, a swelling orchestra, quick movements, passionate embraces…explosions…tidal waves! Falling rocks! Loud noises!!

John Andreas Andersen is having none of it. Even the imdb plot summary is low-key: An oil platform dramatically goes down on the Norwegian coast, and researchers try to find out what happened when they realize this is just the start of something even more serious.

Ooooo…even more serious.

Andersen is really underselling the dire situation facing his characters in The Burning Sea.

Kristine Kujath Thorp is Sofia, a scientist working with a robotics company in collaboration with Norway’s government and oil industry. She and colleague Arthur (Rolf Kristian Larsen) are called to use their tech to investigate a platform that’s gone down, only to discover an impending disaster worthy of Big Disaster Movie overstatement.

The filmmaker doesn’t avoid every trope with his oil rig catastrophe. The Burning Sea begins intriguingly enough with talking-head style interview, but immediately embraces the typical structure of a Hollywood popcorn muncher.

Still, by scaling everything back a bit Andersen leaves room for his cast to anchor the calamity at sea with honest performances of dimensional characters.

Thorp convinces you that Sofia is made of the stuff that defines heroes, but she does it quietly and without bluster. It’s an interesting approach, one that mirrors Andersen’s and gives the entire film a “based on true events” quality, even though it’s entirely fictional.

Thank God.

Andersen cut his teeth in the industry as a cinematographer, boasting some remarkable work. Morten Tyldum’s 2011 thriller Headhunters, in particular, is gorgeous and incredibly tense. It’s no surprise, then, that The Burning Sea looks great. The film basks in the rugged beauty of the Norwegian seaside before being stricken with the claustrophobic doom of creaking hulls and labyrinthine shipboard ducts.

In many respects, The Burning Sea is just another by-the-numbers disaster flick. But in dialing down the bombast, Anderson’s film creates a level of authenticity that’s much scarier.  

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Hell Bent

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Hellbender

by Hope Madden

Unusual family dynamics tend to be at the heart of movies made by Adams Family Films, a collective that shares writing, directing, and acting duties.

They’re also a family: co-writer/co-director/co-star/mom Toby Poser, co-writer/co-director/dad John Adams, co-writer/co-director/co-star/daughter Zelda Adams, co-star/daughter Lulu Adams. No word on Cousin It.

The clan’s 2019 horror The Deeper You Dig centered on the bond between mother and daughter, both outsiders in a rural mountain town. The Family’s latest, Hellbender, orbits similar territory.

Poser — again cutting an impressive cinematic figure — is a mother who keeps her teenage girl Izzy (Zelda Adams) far, far from prying eyes. The two enjoy each other’s company, even playing in a 2-person punk band (bass & drums, hell yeah!) called Hellbender.

But Izzy is lonely, and she’s beginning to distrust her mother’s claims that illness prevents socialization. Izzy doesn’t feel sick.

It turns out, Mom isn’t trying to protect Izzy. She’s trying to protect everybody else.

A soundtrack full of the band’s music creates an effective atmosphere of rebellion, anger and evil. Zelda Adams haunts the film, a central figure of awkwardness and naivete blossoming with power.

There’s barely another face onscreen and even fewer behind the camera. Aside from Trey and Samantha Lindsay, who pull crew duties, every role from costume design to sound, editing to cinematography to music is handled by a member of the family.

They are impressive. Hellbender looks great. It sounds great. The story is fluid and creepy, punctuated with psychedelic carnage and informed by lived-in relationships.

A muddy backstory and slight anticlimax keep the film from utterly beguiling, but the coming-of-age center impresses. Hellbender delivers a moral ambiguity that questions society’s fear of female power.

The Adams Family doesn’t represent a gimmick or a “good for you for trying” brand of filmmaking. These people are the real deal and I look forward to their next effort.

New In Theaters

More Geezer, Less Teaser

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Gasoline Alley

by George Wolf

“Hey, Bruce Willis, how many movies do you have coming this year?”

“Yes.”

In the month or so since the last Willis project with writer/director Edward John Drake – American Siege– was released, I’ve learned of the term “Geezer Teaser,” which is a perfect summation of how this genre usually operates. An aging star is featured heavily in the marketing, while their tangential character often just disappears midway through the film due to the star’s 1-day shooting schedule.

The good news for Gasoline Alley is that Willis hangs in ’til the end, and it’s clearly the best of the Willis/Drake collabs.

Luke Wilson joins in this time as well, playing Detective Vargas to Bruno’s Detective Freeman, and these two guys have four big problems. The bodies of four dead hookers have turned up, and a lighter found at the scene leads the two cops to Gasoline Alley, the L.A. tattoo parlor of ex-con Jimmy Jayne (Devon Sawa). Jimmy was also the last person seen with the dead hooker named Star (“If you forget it, just look up”), but do you think Jimmy’s going to sit back and just accept being framed?

Damn right he’s not. He’s going to let Willis and Wilson (Willison!) take some scenes off while he conducts his own investigation, sleuthin’ and shootin’ with an ever-present cigarette dangling perfectly from his steely pout.

Most everything about Drake’s films is varying degrees short of authentic. And though Gasoline Alley shows progress, details such as the set design, score and faux news reports still seem carelessly thrown together, which don’t give the forced noir dramatics much of a chance to cast a spell.

But if you’ve seen all of the Drake/Willis (Drillis!) catalog (and this is number five, with another currently in post-production), Gasoline Alley is a pleasant surprise.

Drake’s script (co-written with Tom Sierchio) has moments of self-aware humor – even poking fun at one of his previous films. And while Willis is again on autopilot, Wilson seems to be enjoying the “no F’s to give” attitude of his character, Sawa is commendably committed and Veep‘s Sufe Bradshaw turns in some fine support.

Is it ridiculous, overwrought and amateurish in spots? Sure, but this one is actually watchable.

Bravo, fellas, keep it up.