Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

An Unbroken Wheel

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This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

by Cat McAlpine

In the small village of Nazareth, in the tiny Kingdom of Lesotho, a man recounts the wisdom his father once gave to him. “My son, what they call progress…It is when men point their damning finger at nature and proclaim conquest over it.” It is that poisonous progress that the people of Nazareth are fighting against in This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, and it is a losing battle.

The film follows 80-year-old widow Mantoa. After the death of her last surviving child, she finds herself utterly alone and mired in grief. The story unfolds like a mythic, dark fairytale with beautiful vignettes and discordant music. Director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese carries us from moment to moment as Mantoa repeatedly has to contemplate her grief. Though she resigns herself to simply wait to be buried alongside her family, a new challenge arrives with a blazer and a megaphone. The village will be relocated, a dam will be built, their fields will be flooded.

What of the dead? What of Mantoa? The elderly woman convinces the village to resist the spinning wheels of progress. Together they seek to find what is left for their community in the land where their dead are buried. Twice we are reminded that Nazareth is the name that new settlers gave the land. Before that, it was always known as the Plains of Weeping.

Jerry Mofokeng delivers a reverent and deeply sad narration of Mantoa’s struggles. Using the framework of a narrator, with a different voice and perspective than Mantoa, further perpetuates the storybook feel. But this is not a happy children’s tale. This is a story about capitalism’s infinite reach. This is a story about grief, culture, and perseverance. This is a story about the dead.

Mary Twala is phenomenal in her final role as Mantoa. Her emotion is palpable even when she sits in silence. Her rage and her pain don’t slow the narrative or taint it with bitterness. Instead, Twala propels Mantoa with the depths of her grief. She is an absolute powerhouse, and the film would not succeed as well as it does without her.

And the film does succeed. It is incredibly beautiful, rich with color, light, and shadow. Every scene is a haunting painting. The cast, mixed with actors and non-actors alike, brings you to witness the erasure of a real place and real people, and you mourn with them. When Mofokeng intones that the dead buried the dead, he reflects on a village that will soon be hidden under water.

Though the people of Nazareth still live, something about them will be lost forever. They are some of the last of their kind as new roads, and new buildings, and new dams continue to creep into the quiet places of the world. Progress fills up little villages with the walking dead as ways of life are washed away.

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Jailhouse Glock

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Copshop

by George Wolf

Man, did I hear about it last week when I argued that the first two acts of Malignant weren’t nearly strong enough to support the all out lunacy of the finale. I stand by that, but moving on…

Copshop also delivers a balls-out third act, but the self-aware setup by director/co-writer Joe Carnahan ensures we’re plenty ready to surrender to the shoot-em-up fun.

Mob “fixer” Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo) punches Nevada rookie cop Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) on purpose, looking for the safety of a jail cell. He gets one, but he’s soon followed by hitman Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler, also a producer), who wants to get close enough to Teddy to take him out.

Plenty more bad guys get involved – including a scene-stealing Toby Huss (Seinfeld‘s “The Wiz”) as a psycho who likes to spray bullets and sing soul classics – and before long it seems Val’s only chance of getting out of work alive is deciding which one of these locked up bad guys is worth trusting.

Grillo and Butler are both on tough-guy autopilot, charismatic and menacing with a smidge of possible empathy. But Louder (TV’s Watchmen) is the standout, finding the layers of a character that’s real, smart and savvy enough to holster this movie and claim it for her own.

The dialog often snaps with wit, the banter touching on everything from Chris Hemsworth’s beach getaway to the benefits of cole slaw. But this is an action flick first, and Carnahan (Boss Level, The Grey, Smokin’ Aces) rolls out well-staged and satisfying set pieces that strike a nice balance between tense and preposterous.

The grindhouse Western opening not only introduces us to the setting of Gun Creek, Nevada (subtle!), but also a playful and purposeful tone that Carnahan steers with impressive craftsmanship.

Are you gonna remember Copshop much past closing time? Probably not, but you’re gonna have a bloody good time before you clock out.

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Manor Manners

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Lady of the Manor

by Hope Madden

Flatulence, Judy Greer and historical reenactments? I don’t think we see enough of these in independent film.

Neither do brothers Justin and Christian Long, presumably, because they have written and directed Lady of the Manor to encourage us to spend some time with all three. And since the flatulence is cinematic rather than aromatic, what’s the harm?

There is none. The film is, in a word, harmless.

Greer plays Civil War-era Lady Wadsworth. As the film opens, we see her behaving properly, sporting proper posture and manners, quarreling politely with her husband, and tumbling fatally down a flight of stairs.

The Longs intercut this scene with the audio from a true-crime program being viewed by modern-day ne’er-do-well Hannah (Melanie Lynskey). After a series of drug and alcohol-related shenanigans, the down-on-her-luck Hannah accepts a position as tour guide of Wadsworth Manor.

Hannah’s clear, almost criminal weaknesses in the areas of ladylikeness bring the ghost of Lady Wadsworth back to the manor to teach Hannah some etiquette. Or is there another reason for her spectral return?

The Longs plump up their very slight script with plenty of silliness. Justin portrays Hannah’s bashful history professor suitor Max, while Ryan Phillippe lampoons his early career roles with a funny entitled douchebag performance as Wadsworth heir, Tanner.

There’s also a fun Luis Guzmán cameo and a rare Patrick Duffy sighting.

But the film is at its best when Lynskey and Greer turn My Fair Lady into The Odd Couple. These veteran character actors riff off each other like old vaudeville partners, bringing joy to even the most superficial scenes.

There are plenty of those. Lady of the Manor often plays like an extended episode of Drunk History, only maybe not quite as funny. Everybody seems to be enjoying themselves, no one is challenged by the material, and an entirely pleasant if fairly predictable and only modestly funny time is had by all, viewers included.

New In Theaters

Must Be Adjacent to the Hotel California

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The Nowhere Inn

by Christie Robb

Ever wondered what a mock music documentary directed by David Lynch would feel like?

Bill Benz’s The Nowhere Inn is a hybrid of St. Vincent tour footage and a deconstruction of the concept of identity, written by real-life friends Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia, Sleater-Kinney).

Ostensibly a music documentary of a St. Vincent tour put together by Annie and her best friend/director Carrie, the goal of the project is to show fans who Annie Clark really is and give Carrie a chance to dig herself out of a career rut.

Quickly, Carrie tires of Annie’s life off stage, which consists of Pilates, playing scrabble with bandmates on the bus, and searching around tour locations for farmers’ markets to purchase healthy road snacks. Carrie asks Annie to zhuzh it up a bit to make the film more interesting.

And the offended Annie delivers.

As Annie’s behind-the-scenes self merges with that of her stage persona, the film takes on a more ominous tone. It combines elements of a music video with comedy and thriller/horror. (And even amateur pornography in a fun little scene with Dakota Johnson playing an expensive lingerie-wearing fictional Dakota Johnson.) Ultimately, the movie becomes surrealist as it grapples with the nature of identity, friendship and authenticity.

The cinematography is often painterly with vibrant colors contrasted against velvety blacks. This is mixed with somewhat grainy “archival” footage, filmed St. Vincent performances, and reality TV-style confessional interview footage. The fact that we don’t get lost in all this is a win for the editing department.

Annie Clark shows an impressive acting range, from nerdy awkwardness to lonely vulnerability, aloof artist to menacing narcissist. She’s also got a sense of comedic timing that can keep up with the bone-dry Brownstein.

Although the thesis is somewhat belabored and some of the subplots don’t particularly go anywhere, The Nowhere Inn is an interesting place to find yourself.

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Going Like a Ghostland

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Prisoners of the Ghostland

by Hope Madden

Nicolas Cage referred to Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland as possibly the wildest film he’s ever been in.

Wilder than Wild at Heart?

Wilder than Mandy?

Wilder than – I mean, it’s a long list. We’re talking about Nicolas Cage here. But Sono (Suicide Club, Antiporno, Tokyo Vampire Hotel, Why Don’t You Play in Hell, among others) is no slouch in the wild department. So, it would seem that he and Cage make a suitable match.

Sono’s tale pits dastardly bank thief and all around nogoodnik Hero (Cage) against the clock, testicular bombs, and marauding trucker ghosts. Why? To return The Mayor’s (Bill Moseley) beloved granddaughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella) back to him.

If that sounds simple enough —and it probably does not— the film’s even more unusual than the synopsis suggests. Prisoners of the Ghostland delivers a samurai cyberpunk musical Western dystopian neo-noir with flourishes reminiscent of Mad Max and Mulan Rouge.

I wish that mashup worked better.

The Mayor rules Samurai Town, a garish din of debauchery, color and indulgence. Here Sono delivers bold and bizarre visuals. He runs with the idea that the samurai and the cowboy are essentially, cinematically, the same beast.

Bernice is held in Ghostland, all ash and cinder populated as much by mannequins as humans. Haunting imagery here as well, though less of it unique, marrying Western to dystopic fantasy. Plus the Greek chorus.

Compared to Sono’s madcap antics, Cage is almost subdued. Does he ride naked on a child’s bike? Grapple with toxic mutant monsters? Sing? He does! It’s just that Sono’s vision is wilder still.

The filmmaker’s aesthetic is jarring, disjointed, overwhelming, frenetic, sometimes stupid, other times glorious, and never less than mad. The fact that he tries to tie it all together neatly at the end may be Prisoners of the Ghostland’s biggest drawback.

The underlying story is of trafficked women taking control of their lives and bodies, though the fact that Boutella is essentially voiceless and in need of saving speaks louder about the film’s themes. She does a solid job in a thankless role, as does everyone in the densely populated ensemble.

It’s bananas It doesn’t entirely work – sometimes it doesn’t work at all — but it is a bold mess that commands attention.

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Oh, Hell

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Hellarious

by Hope Madden

Short films rarely get their due, and getting an audience is rarer still. Any opportunity to sit down with a set of shorts that made a splash in the festival circuit is an opportunity worth taking. If arterial spray and laughter are your thing, Hellarious is a chance worth taking.

The compilation contains seven short films, each a horror comedy. There’s no framing device or theme, simply a collection of sometimes bawdy, once in a long while sweet, mostly viscous horror. There are a lot of fluids here.

Like an automatic door to hell, James Feeney’s Killer Kart opens things. His creeping camera sets a fun tone for an absurd “ordinary item” monster movie (a la Rubber). An inspired score by Daniel Hildreth, Christine Rodriguez and Ray Bouchard matches the mayhem nicely.

Robert Boocheck’s charming Horrific—a tale of mutant varmints, hula hoop porn and besotted tidy whities—lands laughs thanks to Mike Nelson’s semi-heroic central performance. Likewise the Deathgasm-esque Death Metal offers a highly enjoyable and sometimes morally questionable bloodbath with the most delightful practical effects.

A sweet authenticity drives Bitten, Sarah K. Reimers’s romantic, dog-loving upending of the werewolf tale. (Who’s a good boy? Iggy is! Iggy’s a good boy!) If you can take your eyes off that adorable dog, you’ll notice two tenderly funny performances by Francine Torres and Michael Curran.

Director Jason Tostevin, who also compiled the films, helms two of the shorts in the program, both co-written with Randall Greenland. ‘Til Death offers a post-mortem comeuppance tale boasting several strong performances. Born Again, though, is one of the compilation’s two highest points.

Six and a half minutes with the worst Satanists ever exposes you to a really beautifully filmed subversion of expectations. Slyly comical performances top to bottom entertain, but Greenland is a laugh riot in a starring role.

The collection’s second high peak comes thanks to Clarissa Jacobson and J.M. Logan’s sloppy concoction, Lunch Ladies. This is a delirious fantasy about underdogs rising to the challenge and making their dreams come true—becoming personal chefs to “the Depper,” Johnny Depp. Donna Pieroni and Mary Manofsky deliver consistent laughs in a film that almost makes a person want to love Johnny Depp again.

Variety, laughs, mayhem, blood spatter, romance, cheerleader pot pie—Hellarious is a tasty treat of bite sized horror.

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Beyond Pearlygate

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The Eyes of Tammy Faye

by George Wolf

Some facial prosthetics and a crap ton of makeup give Jessica Chastain the physical features of Tammy Faye Bakker, but it’s the way Chastain embodies Bakker’s sympathetic garishness that ultimately keeps your eyes on The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Tammy Faye LaValley met Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) at Minnesota’s North Central Bible College in the early 1960s, but both had to drop out when they got married. Taking their endlessly upbeat sermonizing on the road, they developed a mix of song, scripture and puppet shows that was a perfect fit for television.

After launching The 700 Club for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, Jim and Tammy set out to build their own empire in 1974 with the PTL (Praise the Lord) Club. The show’s massive success led to an entire PTL TV network and then to Heritage USA, a Christian-themed theme park and retreat in South Carolina.

And then, of course, it all crashed in the late 1980s, under a wave of sex scandal, bankruptcy, and Jim’s conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Taking inspiration from the 2000 documentary also titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye, director Michael Showalter (The Big Sick, Hello My Name Is Doris) and writer Abe Sylvia (TV’s Nurse Jackie and The Affair) make this an unabashedly sympathetic portrait. And while capitalizing on Chastain’s excellence is entirely understandable, it comes at the expense of developing some other major players (Garfield’s Bakker, Vincent D’Onofrio as Jerry Falwell) that could have deepened the overall context.

Only the great Cherry Jones, as Tammy Faye’s mother Rachel, is given the space for nuance, and it is this mother-daughter dynamic that gives the film its heart.

Though the Tammy Faye persona is outwardly cartoonish, Chastain shows us a woman driven to make others feel the love that she did not; a wife unafraid to fight for her seat at the table; and a Christian committed to loving, helping and forgiving. An advocate for the Gay community in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, Tammy Faye also championed social programs for the poor and even brought the subject of penile implants to Christian TV.

And all of those revelations make the moments when Showalter’s tone flirts with patronization all the more curious. Late in the film, Tammy Faye admits to “loving the camera” and a producer simply asks, “Why?” Though it lands as the moment Showalter and Sylvia have been building toward, they ultimately move past it as a frustrating afterthought.

If the goal here was to spotlight an award-worthy lead performance in an entertaining hat tip to Tammy Faye, well then mission accomplished.

But the frequent use of real news broadcasts and headlines – paired with an early look at the strategy behind Republican Jesus – make us eager for a broader context, one that The Eyes of Tammy Faye misses by a false eyelash.

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You’re Not Listening

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What She Said

by Rachel Willis

Hidden away at a family cabin, Sam (Jenny Lester) has plans to work on her dissertation when she’s interrupted by her brother, Eli (Britt Michael Gordon), who shows up to check on her. It’s obvious from the beginning Sam is using her dissertation as an excuse to hide. In the midst of a rape trial, Sam mentions to Eli she might have dropped the charges against her rapist. Eli’s reaction is to call Sam’s group of friends to the cabin to stage an intervention disguised as a Friendsgiving celebration.

Written by Lester, and directed by Amy Northup, What She Said takes a hard look at the far-reaching devastation of rape.

Sam’s life is in chaos following her assault and the ongoing trial. When her friends, including sister (Paige Berkovitz) and sister-in-law (Juliana Jurenas), show up to help convince her to go through with the trail, Sam is angry and reluctant to accept their interference. Into the midst of this chaotic situation, friend Ruthy (Lucas Calzada) arrives, surprised to find the cabin full of people.

The friend relationships play the biggest role in the movie. Each character has their own way of dealing with what happened to Sam. Some of these characters are more fleshed out than others, but even the characters with more depth at times fall into stereotype. 

Because he’s an outsider to the group, Ruthy asks questions that help us understand the character dynamic within Sam’s group. These scenes provide heavy-handed context rather than letting the character interactions speak to the larger relationships.

Ruthy also advocates for Sam when her friends and family don’t, or can’t, understand her choices. This is where the character is best utilized, reminding those who want to help Sam that the best way they can to that is to let her make her own decisions. However, his quips at the end of arguments make you wonder why the others don’t throw him out.

What She Said is not a perfect film, but it tackles a serious issue in both unexpected and important ways. How a family reacts can often leave a woman feeling further disempowered (this is best exemplified in a scene with Sam’s mom), but it also highlights the importance of a support group free of judgment. Sam opens up to Ruthy because he provides that kind of support. It’s a lesson worth learning.      

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Despite All My Rage

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Dark Blood

by Brandon Thomas

Famous actors often don’t get to choose how the public views them and their careers. A lucky few can bounce between genres – keeping audiences on their toes. More often than not, actors become associated with one kind of film and rarely escape that shadow. 

In director Harold Trompetero’s new crime drama Dark Blood, John Leguizamo gets to shake free of his comedic and action past, and deliver one of the best performances of his storied career. 

After killing the man he believes molested and killed his son, Misael (Leguizamo of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar and John Wick) has just arrived to prison. The blood is still fresh on his hands and clothes when the guards assault him for the first time and throw him into solitary confinement. Misael begins to acclimate to the dangerous life behind bars. Continued assaults from the guards become an almost daily routine, and even other inmates put Misael in their crosshairs.

Prison movies are almost uniformly bleak. These films offer glimpses into humanity at its absolute worst. Dark Blood is no different in its depiction of how morality breaks down behind bars. There’s a code inmates and guards live by, but it’s all wrapped up in bloodshed and despair. Even at a scant 82 minutes, the film paints a vivid picture of the world within these dangerous walls. 

Dark Blood takes the subject matter and its characters seriously, but there’s no desire here to be something as deep as Midnight Express. There’s a griminess to the violence that wouldn’t feel out of place in grindhouse movies of the 1970s. 

Leguizamo has made a good career playing 2nd or 3rd banana in many of his projects. These were not especially complex films with deep characters, but Leguizamo was good in them. In Dark Blood, Leguizamo gives a near career-best performance. Leguizamo wisely leans into his inherent likeability to help craft Misael as a mild-mannered but passionate man. There’s a simmering rage to Misael that bubbles right below the surface for the entire film.

Dark Blood isn’t the next Shawshank Redemption, but what it is is an expertly made film that walks the fine line between drama and exploitation. 

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He Sells Sanctuary

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The Conservation Game

by George Wolf

The runaway train wreck that was The Tiger King made Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin into instant celebrities, and overnight, it seemed everyone in America was taking sides.

Retired Ohio cop Tim Harrison kept his focus on the cats, and The Conservation Game takes us inside his relentless but cool-headed mission to expose the shadowy dealings of the animal exploitation trade.

Harrison grew up enthralled by Marlon Perkins on Wild Kingdom, and then by Jack Hanna’s animal exploits on TV. For a time, Harrison even wanted to follow in Hanna’s footsteps. But he was already growing disenchanted with “reality TV mindset” of the talk show animal segments when a visit to an exotic animals auction changed the course of his life.

Wisely, director Michael Webber takes an approach that is the polar opposite of The Tiger King. Though the Baskins make an appearance and Joe Exotic’s threats to Carole’s life are referenced, Webber makes all that mess a logical and organic part of a bigger picture that is well-reasoned and far from sensationalized.

Harrison and his passionate team set out to expose the dirty secrets of the animal expert personalities, and the hidden network of breeders keeping them supplied with cute baby “ambassador cats.”

But what happens when the babies grow up? Where are these “sanctuaries” the hosts talk about on TV?

Harrison puts those questions to wildlife personalities including Jerod Miller, Dave Salmoni, Boone Smith and Grant Kemmerer, and their answers are peppered with evasion, condescension and and even veiled threats.

“Just because you haven’t found them doesn’t mean they disappeared,” one of them argues. “It means you need to learn how to find them better.”

Webber makes a quick cut to the online sleuth of Harrison’s team who deadpans, “Challenge accepted.”

Outside of a few re-enactments of Harrison’s youth, the film trades style for a more guerrilla approach. But the hidden-camera footage rivals both Blackfish and The Cove for sheer bullseye effectiveness. It’s gut-wrenching, heartbreaking and downright infuriating, with Webber employing well-placed edits that call out apparent lies with speed and precision.

I’ve lived in Columbus, Ohio for almost forty years, and much like Harrison, I’ve always regarded our zoo as a national treasure and Hanna as a local hero. Full disclosure: I’ve been to events that enabled me to take photos with these types of ambassador cats.

And because Hanna is the biggest name involved here, the charges against him and the Columbus Zoo land with the most shocking and disappointing force.

Webber is able to include the news of Hanna’s retirement and dementia diagnosis, as well as the Columbus Zoo’s recent decision to reverse course and formally endorse passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act championed by Harrison, Baskin, and scores of other zoos and animal rights activists.

What prompted that specific change is left up to us to decide, but Harrison is much more direct about the changes needed to end the exploitation of ambassador animals.

Webber uses the journey of one committed man to make the message relatable, relying on the power of what he finds to become universal. Will this film fuel the outrage that arose after the revelations in Blackfish and The Cove?

That’s up to us as well. The Conversation Game may be a little more rough around the edges, but its case is nearly as closed.