Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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Song of Myself

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CODA

by George Wolf

CODA is the type of welcome reminder we get every so often that lets us know a formulaic story isn’t an inherently bad thing. Fill the formula with characters that feel real enough to care about, and even a predictable journey can be a touching ride.

Writer/director Sian Heder delivers an engaging crowd-pleaser with CODA, titled after the acronym for Child Of Deaf Adults. That child is Gloucester, Mass. high school senior Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones from Netflix’s Locke and Key – just terrific), who’s the only hearing person in her household of Mom Jackie (Marlee Matlin), Dad Frank (Tony Kotsur) and brother Leo (Daniel Durant).

The Rossi family business is fishing, but Ruby’s real passion is for singing – even though she’s too shy to let people know it. On a whim, she follows her crush Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) to choir class, where the demanding “Mr. V.” (Eugenio Derbez) sees a true talent buried under nerves. Find your voice, Mr. V. tells Ruby, and you could earn a music scholarship.

Find your voice. Heder comes right out and says it – about a character who literally has the only speaking voice in her family. And in an instant, CODA acknowledges all of the ingredients for another manipulative YA special fest, and then sets about swatting them away through thoughtful writing, smart pacing and wonderful performances all around.

Events are often a tad convenient, but the stakes and the people weighing them always feel authentic. Ruby and her friends talk about sex and drugs. Jackie is a (gasp) proudly sexy and sexual middle-aged woman who also has poignant concerns about raising a hearing child. Frank is a loving family man looking for ways to keep his boat in the water, while Leo fights to prove he’s not helpless, and to push Ruby toward her dream.

And, of course, the title also works as a reference to the end of Ruby’s childhood as she moves to take more control of her own life.

So yes, expect first love, a big moment at the choir concert and a happy ending, but the trip to where we know we’re going is funny and warm thanks to the winning cast and Heder’s earnest command of tone. The spots where she removes all sound to shift the perspective are well-placed and never cloying, adding to the film’s list of sweetly resonant moments.

There aren’t many verses in CODA‘s coming-of-age composition that we haven’t heard before. But these hits benefit from an endlessly heartfelt new arrangement, leaving a setlist that’s familiar, but well worth cueing up again.

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Fascism Fascination

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The Meaning of Hitler

by Hope Madden

At a time in history where fascism, neo-Nazism, nationalism, antisemitism and white supremacy flourish out in the open, it seems natural that our collective conscious directs its attention to the rise of the Nazi party.

And at the same time, doesn’t one more documentary about Hitler just add to his legend?

Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker (Gunner Palace) grapple with that conundrum in their latest, The Meaning of Hitler.

Their primary aim is to look at how it happened in the first place to see how it might be stopped this go-round without romanticizing Hitler himself. But that had a lot to do with how he became the cult of personality he was, and why he continues to fascinate entitled, angry people.

“The Nazi ideals were acted out by people who were absolutely normal.”

Historian Yehuda Bauer, a 95-year-old who knows firsthand, shares this insight. And while much of what Epperlein and Tucker cover feels well-worn, this one bit of information gives the film upsetting relevance.

That’s why it’s happening again. Hitler was little more than a spoiled, profoundly selfish, childish man who wanted what he wanted. What he wanted was evil, but he found that an awful lot of people were OK with that as long as they believed they would also be allowed to take whatever it is they wanted.

That sounds familiar, but thankfully the film’s main point is not simply to draw obvious parallels with another vane and repugnant manchild. Their central problem is how to expose a fascist’s need to be mythologized without mythologizing the fascist.

They find freshness and relevance, partly in the transparency of their thought processes. It’s often as though we’re privy to the actual construction of the film: images of Epperlein in the scene with a clapboard or boom mic, the sound of Tucker asking the subject a question.

Part of what makes this approach work is the way it deconstructs the propaganda that Hitler used to pretend he was more than a failed artist and spoiled child. Inviting us behind the curtain, Epperlein and Tucker puncture the gaudy theatricality that makes weak men look like something they’re not.

These filmmakers are making a documentary about Hitler specifically to point out that it’s time we end our fascination with fascism.

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Scare City

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Howling Village

by Brandon Thomas

Takashi Shimizu is J-horror (Japanese horror) royalty. His Grudge series of films were just as influential and important as Ringu, Dark Water and Pulse. Shimizu has earned his bona fides, and while the Howling Village doesn’t quite reach the heights of his earlier work, it’s still an effective entry into the ghost story realm.

Anika (Rinka Otani) and her boyfriend, Yuma (Ryoto Bando), enter the “Howling Village” late at night to witness the mysterious village for themselves. After a harrowing encounter, Anika seemingly ends her own life even though she died on land with water in her lungs. A distraught Yuma disappears into the Howling Village once more, this time with his younger brother at his side. As Yuma’s older sister, Kanata (Ayaka Miyoshi), begins to piece together the mystery around her brothers’ disappearance, the forces around the Howling Village, and Kanata’s family , rise up to stop her.  

Early on, Howling Village sets the stage for a complicated mystery between Kanata’s family and the village itself. These types of ghost stories love to mix family drama and tradition with the supernatural. The ones that do it well (Hereditary, The Changeling) do it extremely well, while those at the other end of the spectrum usually end up adding one too many layers that weigh the story down. 

The film’s mix of mystery and horror would’ve worked better had Shimizu ironed out the details with more precision The narrative becomes contrived and confusing – often bouncing around to different characters and plots without finishing the thought of those individual scenes. Howling Village is a film that wants to comment on prejudice, greed, and how those two things end up coalescing into one heinous act. The script just never quite manages to do anything more than make a superficial comment on either topic. 

All is not lost though. There are a few successful scares that are right up there with the best of J-horror. Shimizu’s fantastic grip on the tonal dread throughout the film is really the saving grace. Sure, the mystery bogs things down, and some of the rules don’t make a lick of sense, but the super creepy visuals and situations make up for the shortcomings.  

Howling Village takes some big swings at the story it tries, but ultimately fails, to hit. The major narrative surprises may fall flat, but the film manages to make up some ground through solid scares and atmosphere. 

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Revealing Our Privates in Public

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Materna

by Christie Robb

With Materna, director David Gutnik presents four emotional vignettes of women and their relationships with either their mother figures, their children, or both.

While the four women’s stories intersect in a brief, tense moment on a New York subway car, their backstories and how they came to be in that particular car are quite different.

The flashbacks don’t depict simple, saccharine, Hallmark Mother’s Day card relationships. These relationships are layered and complicated—with longing and frustration, the urge to shelter and the urge to smack.

Each of the four lead actresses, Kate Lyn Sheil, Jade Eshete, Lindsay Burdge, and Assol Abdullina, rises to the challenge and convincingly demonstrates the emotional range of her subject. (Eshete and Abdullina also co-wrote the screenplay with Gutnik.)

Rory Culkin shows up to illustrate that the maternal instinct is not solely the purview of those with two X chromosomes.

It’s not a perfect film. The initial segment, while it does pique the viewer’s interest, maybe doesn’t best set the stage for the ones that follow. There are elements that seem to signal sci-fi or body horror that aren’t carried through in the rest of the film. And because of the brevity of each of the vignettes, some of them seem a little roughly sketched, lacking in details that would more solidly ground the perspective of the woman depicted.

At the point of intersection in the subway car, each of the women is keeping herself to herself and adhering to the unspoken etiquette of public transportation. But then a white man starts loudly trying to engage them in conversation that quickly devolves into harassment and violence.

This screaming, egomaniac clearly sees himself as the most important person in the shared space and aims to capture everyone’s attention, making his private life public, doing a kind of emotional manspreading. It’s interesting to contrast this with what the women are dealing with and how their private lives either do or do not impact this public space.  

This is Gutnik’s first feature film and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

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A Boy and His Dingo

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Buckley’s Chance

by Rachel Willis

A lighthearted adventure tale about a boy and his dog – I mean, dingo – struggling to survive alone in the Australian outback, Tim Brown’s latest film, Buckley’s Chance, should delight viewers of a certain age (the under 10 crowd).

Tough kid Ridley (Milan Burch) finds his world upended when he and his mom, Gloria (Victoria Hill), move from New York City to live with his irascible grandfather (Bill Nighy) on a sheep farm in the rugged Outback.

There isn’t much explanation as to why Gloria and Ridley are moving around the world to live with a man neither of them has met. While this might not bother children, it is a bit of a head-scratcher. We get a bit more later to explain this sudden upheaval in Ridley’s life, but it’s only a tidbit of not entirely convincing information.

It takes decidedly too long to introduce the Adorable Dingo that befriends Ridley. But it’s worth the wait. From the moment the long-legged, golden-coated wild dog enters the story, he steals the show. Okay, not quite, but he does distract from the moments when Burch’s acting falters. The relationship between boy and dingo gives the movie its emotional center.

A children’s adventure film needs bumbling baddies, and this one adds a couple who have the right amount of menace and hilarity. A few laughs are hewn from these villainous hog farmers, and they’re easily the most entertaining part of the movie.

The film’s biggest weaknesses come when it forgets its target audience. There are a few scenes that center too much around the adults and their dramas. Without Ridley’s presence, these scenes are out of place. There isn’t much appeal for children in a woman and her father-in-law reminiscing. Throwing these moments into the film also leaves less time for the main adventure.

As the hardnosed grandfather, Nighy doesn’t bring his A-game. His Australian accent is bad, his performance a little wooden, but you can’t help but like him just the same. His exchanges with Burch provide some of the film’s finest moments (not including the dingo).

The Australian outback is one of the most distinctive locales on earth, and cinematographer Ben Nott knows how to draw both the beauty and the terror from it. It’s tough not to be impressed with the challenges Ridley faces against this uncompromising landscape with just his wits and a dingo.

If you need a movie to enjoy with your kids, this one is good enough for all ages.

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Sandusky Fabulous

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Swan Song

by Hope Madden

Do you mean to say that Udo Kier and Jennifer Coolidge were in Sandusky, Ohio and nobody told me?

Yes! All thanks to the magic of Todd Stephens, a filmmaker born and raised in Sandusky who has neighborhood stories to tell that do not involve Cedar Point. Stephens wrote the film Swan Song as a fictional homage to his own hometown hero.

Kier plays that hero, retired hairdresser Pat Pitsenbarger. Though Pat never left Sandusky, he’s been closed up in a nursing home for so long that he doesn’t even recognize it. That changes when the dying wish of an old client—the richest and most glamorous woman in all of Sandusky (Linda Evans, no less!)—is for Pat to make her gorgeous.

Kier, a staple of independent film since 1970, effortlessly infuses any movie with a palpable sense of the weird and unseemly. Often pegged to play baddies (see his recent films The Painted Bird and Bacurau for proof), he is an absolute treasure here, full of joy, impishness and sass to burn.

If Pat is going to be able to pull off this miracle, he’ll have to confront nemesis Dee Dee Dale (Coolidge) — and thank God for it. While you might expect zany comedic antics, the truth is that both veterans display tenderness and heartbreak beneath their barbs. Their scenes together bring real depth to an ultimately bittersweet homecoming.

Not every ensemble player is quite as strong and Stephens’s deeply independent roots sometimes show. But whenever things begin to feel almost amateurish or scenes run on a little longer than necessary, Kier somehow salvages it with an eye roll, a sashay, or another affectionate murmuring of “Sandusky…I love you.”

Swan Song delivers a remarkable showcase for Kier’s particular and peculiar talent, but Stephens has more on his mind than a vanity project for a deserving actor. As Pat confronts a world he no longer recognizes, Swan Song laments the death of fabulousness. The film becomes a note about what you lose when you win.

And the glory of a darling pair of shoes.

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Songbird

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Annette

by George Wolf

Annette wraps the beautifully enigmatic visions of director Leos Carax around the idiosyncratic pop musings of Ron and Russell Mael (aka Sparks) for a what-did-I-just-watch spectacle with undeniable will.

Anyone who’s seen Holy Motors knows Carax is a puzzler. And while Edgar Wright’s recent doc The Sparks Brothers may have nudged the Mael boys toward the mainstream, the songs and the story they bring to this film are a mighty slippery mix.

Think A Star Is Born with Sondheim sensibilities, Shakespearean tragedies, and the kitsch of a Springfield Community Theatre production from The Simpsons.

Magic, right? Well, sometimes.

Adam Driver stars as Henry, a standup comic provocateur whose new show “The Ape of God” has him boasting that he only does comedy so he “can tell the truth without getting killed.”

Marion Cotillard is Ann, a famous opera star who “saves” her audience by dying onstage every night.

As detailed by headlines from the Showbizz Network, the two fall passionately in love, get married and have a daughter named Annette, who comes into the world with an unexpected gift.

In fact, you’ll find most everything about Annette to be a surprise. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

The actors sing live and frequently break that fourth wall, which brings new intimacy to some very intimate moments and quickly immerses us in the grandness of Carax’s vision. Armed with sumptuous cinematography from Caroline Champetier, Carax rolls out a succession of gorgeously hypnotic set pieces.

Be ready, though, for the dreamlike tone to often run headlong into campy silliness that leaves many metaphorical elements searching for a resonate metaphor.

Just when Annette is clear about its musings on the relationship between artist and audience, or about fame, or self-loathing, or fragile masculinity or creative boundaries, it goes all Cop Rock on us.

But man, it’s transfixing to look at, and the Driver/Cotillard pairing is just as powerful as you’d expect. Just don’t expect anything else from Annette, and what you find won’t soon be forgotten.

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Squad Goals

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The Suicide Squad

by Hope Madden

What, did you think Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, glorious goddess that you know she is) only did that supervillain black ops thing that one time? No. Don’t fix what ain’t broke—she has access to expendable bad guys and lots of very sticky situations to deal with.

Now is just the time for another Suicide Squad.

Actually, writer/director James Gunn’s clear purpose is to fix what David Ayer broke last time. And what did he break? An exceptional idea that rid us of those tedious superheroes and gave us an adventure strewn with the far more colorful characters: the bad guys.

How did he fix it? Step 1: an R rating. He’s not kidding, either. If you only know Gunn from his family-friendly Guardians of the Galaxy adventures, then you may not expect quite this much carnage. If, however, you know him from his early Troma work or his sublime creature feature Slither, then you might have a sense of what’s in store.

Also fixed—the cast! Bring back the good ones (Ms. Davis, Margot Robbie), add exceptional new faces (Idris Elba, John Cena), pepper in Gunn-esque cameos (Michael Rooker Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, Lloyd Kaufman), and voila! Joel Kinnaman’s back, too, and he has to be elated that his character gets to have a personality this time around.

The very James Gunn soundtrack delivers from the opening seconds through the closing credits and brings with it a wrong-headed sense of fun that pervades the entire effort. Gunn’s writing is gawdy, bedazzled, viscera-spattered glee, but there’s a darkness along with it that suggests he understands better than most the ugliness of these characters and their assignment.

Robbie’s Harley Quinn steals scenes, as is her way. Cena’s true talent shines brightest when he’s put in the position to be the butt of jokes, and as such, his Peacemaker gets off a lot of great lines. Elba is the solid skeleton to hang all this nuttiness on.

Not everything works, though. Stallone’s shark man feels like little more than this film’s version of Groot, only with less purpose. There’s a rat subplot that goes nowhere, and the film is as leaden with daddy issues as every comic book movie in history.

But the way Gunn handles the mommy issues that plague Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian, unnerving as ever) is nothing less than inspired.

Is The Suicide Squad a cinematic masterpiece? It is not. It is, however, a bloody, irreverent good time.

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Growing Pains

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John and the Hole

by Hope Madden

Adolescence can be tough. It’s a confusing time, and the fantasy of skipping those awkward years entirely and just being an adult can be heady stuff—especially to John (an unnerving Charlie Shotwell).

When the 13-year-old John stumbles across a deep, unfinished bunker in the woods not far from home, he drugs his family then deposits it, leaving him king of the castle, so to speak.

And leaving his family none the wiser in a hole.

Director and visual artist Pascual Sisto’s feature debut John and the Hole spends a week or so with John as he devises and executes this plan to be the grown-up for a while. Sisto’s working from a script by Nicolás Giacobone, a writer known for dreamlike beauty and cruelty (Birdman, The Revenant, Biutiful).

Dreamlike beauty and cruelty are absolutely in Sisto’s wheelhouse, and he adds Lanthimos-esque absurdism to the effort that makes the film almost funny as well as horrific.

Shotwell’s performance keeps you on edge, unsure of what young John might try next. The performance never veers into easy psychosis or villainy, although it’s undoubtedly the responses of his parents and sister that provoke the most intrigue.

Played with surprising empathy and compassion by Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall and Taissa Farmiga, John’s mother, father and older sister (respectively) represent a very human, genuinely loving and protective unit.

Even in the hole.

It’s a fascinating dynamic, one that defies expectation and gives the film a fable quality that suits it. Some details will certainly frustrate viewers, but the overall impact of Sisto’s measured coming-of-age nightmare is chilling.

Sisto’s tale never tries to explain John’s behavior, and Shotwell’s performance certainly doesn’t shed much light. The film keeps the audience at arm’s length from the first shot through the dining room window to the last shot back at that dinner table.

There’s a chilly beauty to this ambiguity. Between that and an entire ensemble of spot-on performances, you can almost forgive the specificity and resonance the film gives up in favor of this vagueness.

John and the Hole is a head-scratcher and a fascinating addition to the troubled adolescent subgenre.

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Eye in the Sky

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Whirlybird

by Rachel Willis

If you were paying attention to the news in the early 1990s, you’ve likely seen the aerial footage from Bob (now Zoey) Tur and Marika Gerrard-Tur that came out of Los Angeles. Even now, some of the captured footage is embedded within the American culture.

Collating hundreds of hours of footage, director Matt Yoka has assembled a fascinating and poignant documentary about the quest to be first on the scene of breaking news and about the heartbreak of one family behind the camera.

Zoey Tur talks in-depth about her experiences behind the camera in LA, starting in the late 1970s and running through the late ’90s. Her enthusiasm for the chase – whether following police cruisers in the family car (with wife and children in tow), or hovering over the city in her helicopter – is infectious. It’s not hard to see why she pursued the stories with such zeal.

The other half of the duo, Marika, was instantly caught up in the adrenaline rush after her first date with Tur. She describes Tur as being unlike anyone she had known before – a thrill seeker who sucked her into a world of breaking news.

Yoka is not interested in mining the ethical grey area that surrounded the early days of breaking news. Instead, he is more interested in looking at what happens to the people behind the camera – how are they affected by the crime and violence they capture, sometimes as it’s happening?

One of Tur’s most infamous captures was the beating of Reginald Denny. Broadcast on live television (Tur behind the camera in her helicopter), Denny was dragged from his truck and beaten by several men during the LA riots that followed the acquittal of the four officers responsible for the attack on Rodney King.

Tur cannot help but pass judgment on the violence recorded from above, and this is something Yoka focuses on: the influence, not only of the images captured, but the opinions from those recording the footage, on society.

As we watch the seemingly increasing violence in LA, we also watch it reflected in Tur. Violence and anger well up within her, and she lashes out at her family.

Yoka’s sensitive examination of a family and a culture that hinges on the precipice of breaking news is well worth making time for.