Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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No Dice

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Snake Eyes

by Hope Madden

Stay with me. Remember how bad Mortal Kombat was? Like, bad, but kind of so stick-to-your-guns bad, so full of head-bursting ridiculousness and terrible acting that it somehow felt right?

Take that, neuter it completely so you don’t even see any blood regardless of the wall-to-wall swordplay, invest in great-looking scenery and one A-list actor, and you essentially have the new G.I. Joe movie, Snake Eyes.

Henry Golding is that A-lister, an American with a questionable accent and some barely hidden rage issues. A dice game gone bad left him emotionally scarred (thought it did lend him that cool moniker) and now he fistfights his way from one town to the next.

That is, until a shady Yakuza man offers him a chance at vengeance in return for some labor. The next thing you know, Snake Eyes is mixed up in ninja training, clan warfare and global domination, or some such nonsense.

Director Robert Schwentke is pretty hamstrung with the PG-13 rating. His film is based on a children’s cartoon, after all. Sure, that cartoon promotes armed conflict in every single episode—as does this film—but you can’t show the result of any of that violence.

How cool would this movie be if Takashi Miike directed it? And how NC-17?

A girl can dream. But the reality is that Schwentke does about as well as he can within the limitations. The clanging swords are shiny, the motorcycles zip around like the ninjas they carry, and the hand-to-hand bouts stand out.

The acting, well, you know. And writing. Yeesh. Indeed, the writing is weak enough that both Golding and the proven Samara Weaving nearly choke on it. Andrew Koki as clan heir apparent Tommy struggles mightily, his character at war with what is expected of him. It calls for a lot of inner conflict.

It calls for a better script.

Haruka Abe likewise wrestles to find a character within this loyal security chief who’s unemotional and yet so very emotional. And wearing really high heels for someone called on to run this often.

Weaving at least seems to recognize that she is playing a cartoon character, and her performance is therefore reasonably cartoonish. Koki mopes, Abe whines. And Golding, well, he is very handsome.

The sets look great—from a super cool-looking Tokyo to the secret Arashikage compound to the cement pits for bare-knuckle brawling. That’s not really reason enough to watch it, though.

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Final Frontier

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Settlers

by George Wolf

The settlement in writer/director Wyatt Rockefeller’s feature debut may be on Mars, but it’s his measured treatment of the colony’s constant dangers that allow the story to transcend any specific time and place.

Ilsa (Sofia Boutella), Reza (Jonny Lee Miller) and young Remmy (The Florida Project’s Brooklynn Prince) appear to be the only family on a barren Martian settlement, but then they wake to a giant “LEAVE” written on their front window and the questions begin to stack up.

Why is Jerry (Ismael Cruz Cordova) staking a claim to their place? What happened to all the other colonists, and how many others are out there lurking, maybe plotting to attack?

And what caused them all to leave Earth in the first place?

Rockefeller is not at all interested in easy answers, instead employing some first-rate performances and stellar production design to evoke a more universal statement on human nature, and more specifically, the often desperate and consistently overlooked role of women in nation building.

It’s a theme given an effective horror treatment in The Wind three years ago, and while the science fiction elements in Settlers are well-played, they’re also subtle enough to never upstage the character studies at work.

We see the first two acts of the film through young Remmy’s eyes, carefully observing the adults around her and making friends with a dog-like robot she calls “Steve.” Prince delivers a wonderfully tender performance, enabling us to feel Remmy sizing up her future choices with each passing day.

The film’s final act jumps ahead ten years, when a now teenage Remmy (the awesomely named Nell Tiger Free from GoT) is nearing the day she’ll be forced to make those hard choices. Jerry has become an even bigger presence in her life, and Cordova flexes an impressive ability to keep you guessing about Jerry’s true nature until late in the game.

If you lean toward tidy endings wrapped in unmistakable red bows, you’ll find none of those in Settlers. You will find an engrossing tale careful to leave plenty of opportunities for filling in the blank spaces.

Follow where it leads, and you’ll glimpse a future that’s inviting you to rethink the past. And the present.

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That’s Not Junk in the Trunk

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Mandibles

by Hope Madden

The great thing about filmmaker Quentin Dupieux is that you always know what you’re in for and you definitely never know what you’re in for.

The point of Mandibles, essentially, is that you can never rely on anyone to do a single, simple thing correctly. Manu (Grégoire Ludig, Keep an Eye Out) — homeless at the moment — promises to deliver a suitcase in the trunk of his car from Michel-Michel to Point B. He needs to get it there by noon. Can he be trusted to do that one thing?

Of course he can!

He cannot.

There are the extenuating circumstances of the giant housefly that’s already in the trunk. We could get into what happens with the fly, but it’s not going to make any real sense, so why ruin it? Dupieux films work best when you just go with it.

That’s what Manu does. He and best friend Jean-Gab (David Marsais) take opportunities as they come, remain open to possibilities, and just enjoy their friendship. And their new, giant housefly.

The relatively streamlined plot delivers a fresh change of pace for the filmmaker—not that you could call any Dupieux film stale. But in pairing back the complications and convolutions, the writer/director has crafted maybe his most audience-friendly film to date. Mandibles certainly delivers the filmmaker’s most audience-friendly characters.

Ludig frustrates and charms in equal measure as the doofus Manu, and he and Marsais share an easy chemistry that suggests a lot of miles on this friendship. Here is the filmmaker’s most delightful surprise—a lack of cynicism or existential dread that leaves just an airy, almost sweet, wildly ridiculous comedy.

None of this has anything to do with a jawbone, but the title will become clear if you pay close attention.

Or maybe it won’t.

Quentin Dupieux, amiright?

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Road to Nowhere

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Joe Bell

by Hope Madden

In April of 2013, Joe Bell explained his walking trek from Le Grand, Oregon to New York City. He was doing something. Those who watch bullying and do nothing about it are as guilty as the bullies themselves.

It makes sense, then, that Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film Joe Bell is more interested in what Joe did and did not do when confronted with his son’s bullying than it is in the bullying and victimization themselves. Because the truth is, this walk is as much a penance as anything.

Mark Wahlberg plays Joe, volatile but loving husband and father just trying to fly under the radar and still accept, as best he can, his oldest son Jadin’s (Reid Miller) sexual orientation. Joe’s a blue-collar guy in a blue-collar town, and neither Wahlberg nor writers Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry (both of Brokeback Mountain) let him completely off the hook for the misery Jadin faces.

Wahlberg performs admirably as a man who’s trying and failing, but the breakout here is Miller. Warm, bright and brimming with life, Miller’s work the highlight of the film, although Green puts together a solid ensemble including a heartbreakingly understated Connie Britton.

Though an early film contrivance threatens to sink things before they can even really swim, the film eventually finds its lonesome way, more or less. The examination here is culpability, and it’s uncomfortable, messy terrain.

Wahlberg’s performance is raw and emotional. He lets the character struggle, sometimes sinking under the weight of loss and culpability, sometimes accepting the easy balm of celebrity in lieu of real change. His interactions with Britton offer the most complex and satisfying suggestions that Green and team recognize the wide and shattering reach of this kind of trauma.

The film Green builds around Wahlberg never stoops toward easy epiphanies or patronizing catharsis. There is a simmering anger and barely checked pain beneath the surface of this narrative, and no cliched structure or manipulative storytelling gimmicks can entirely cage that.

In the end, Joe Bell does break through the contrivance of familiar storytelling because this story doesn’t fit neatly or cheerily into that package.

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Kilmer Forever

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Val

by Hope Madden

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a crush on Val Kilmer.

I can’t be the only one.

Eighties heartthrob turned Hollywood prick turned reliable character actor turned working actor turned Mark Twain, Kilmer has seen his ups and downs. The thing is, he recorded all of them, too. And now directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott—both primarily known as editors—piece together material from the thousands of hours of video Kilmer has compiled in his 40-odd years in the industry.

The result oscillates between self-indulgence and raw nerve, but it’s never less than intriguing.

Yes, there are behind-the-scenes moments from Top Gun, pieces from the contentious Island of Dr. Moreau set, Batman Forever clips and bits of Doors footage. But the film is most relevant when Kilmer interacts with his son Jack, who also narrates from pages written by his dad.

Kilmer can’t do his own voiceover because of his fight with throat cancer, which left him with a tracheostomy that makes speech difficult. The battle has taken a lot out of him physically in much the way different battles throughout his career has taken a lot out of him financially. Poo, Scott and Kilmer never hide those battle scars, and yet their film never feels exploitative or reality TV-esque.

Much of that has to do with Kilmer’s indominable spirit and generous nature. Though a costly divorce and what amounts to fraud perpetrated by his own father left Kilmer strapped for cash, his outlook on both his ex-wife and his dad are entirely positive. And what he has to say about selling autographs to pay his bills becomes perhaps the most moving moment in a fairly emotional film.

At just under two hours the film seems a tad long. There are times when Val feels self-indulgent, but how could it not? We’re here to watch the actor come back then come back again then, dressed as Mark Twain for his shockingly successful one-man show Citizen Twain, make yet another comeback.

In Val, Jack Kilmer quotes his father quoting Twain: Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. It’s an apt metaphor for a documentary about life and acting, and a springboard for another surprising comeback.

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An Aesthetic Is Born

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All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)

by Christie Robb

Jeremy Elkin and Dana Brown’s documentary explores the origins of what is now a mainstream aesthetic born from two distinct 90s New York City subcultures—graffiti artists/skateboarders and hip hop.

Tracing the ancestry, briefly, to NYC artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the film credits the convergence of the movements to the prescience of the club management department at Club Mars, a multistory nightclub in the Meatpacking District.

In the early 90s, Mars had a weekly hip hop party that started in the basement and attracted a broad swath of NYC street culture. The bouncers let the skate kids in, even if they were all gross and sweaty and not dressed up. Their streetstyle was cool. And the cross-pollination began.

Out of this came:

  • Phat Farm, the first hip hop clothing line
  • Zoo York, the first skateboard brand out of New York
  • The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show, an underground hip hop radio show that introduced Biggie Smalls, Jay Z, Busta Rhymes, and the Wu-Tang Clan (among many others)
  • The independent movie KIDS, featuring the debut performances of Leo Fitzpatrick, Chloe Sevigny, and Rosario Dawson
  • The Supreme skateboarding lifestyle brand
  • The Zoo Mixtape video, with a hip hop soundtrack

As the film reminds us, skateboarding is now an Olympic event and a $2 billion per year industry and hip hop surpassed rock recently as the dominant music genre.

Elkin and Brown stuff their documentary full of interviews from the people who were part of the scene in the 90s like Kid Capri, Stretch Armstrong, Bobbito Garcia, and Mike Carroll. Archival footage was supplied by Eli Morgan Gesner, who had the presence of mind to shoot video of the skateboarders doing tricks and the rappers trying out rhymes. This grounds the film in the visual aesthetic of the period while the original score by hip hop producer Large Professor provides the aural vibe.

It all comes to resemble video scrapbook of the baby years of what’s become a mainstream aesthetic. And, while I’d prefer more coverage of the gradual gentrification of the aesthetic from an outsider scene to a branded “lifestyle,” that’s not really the project here. As a nonfiction narrative looking back on all the individuals and circumstances who mixed together in 90s downtown NYC, All the Streets Are Silent is pretty fly.

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Dan Bites Dog

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Danny. Legend. God.

by Rachel Willis

With a title like Danny. Legend. God. you might expect a movie that’s, well, legendary. Unfortunately, writer/director Yavor Petkov delivers something far more banal with his first feature film.

A film crew follows city councilor, Danny (Dimo Alexiev), for a documentary series about money laundering. However, Danny lets them know they won’t be following any kind of script; they’re making “big cinema.” The three-person team gets more than they bargained for as Danny takes them deeper into his shady world.

Danny is a big fish in a little pond, and along with his heavy, Tanko (Emil Kamenov), spends a lot of his time finding ways to impress his importance upon the film crew. Danny’s godson (Borislav Markovski) tags along for a few of his exploits, and it’s a credit to young Markovski that he’s one of the most interesting characters to watch despite having zero lines of dialogue.

But this points to the film’s biggest problem – the lead. For Danny, you need a character who is both repulsive, yet irresistible. Alexiev’s Danny is repulsive, but there is nothing about him – or the film – that compels you to watch. Too much here feels like we’re waiting for something to happen.

There are several scenes in the car that attempt to heighten the tension of being trapped with someone like Danny, but it doesn’t work. No one wants to be in the car with Danny – not the film crew nor the audience. We’re not watching a car crash, but a traffic jam.

There are a few side characters who turn up for a scene or two that help move the film along. Danny’s irritated wife, the documentary producer, and an old flame play off Alexiev with conviction. Seeing Danny from their points of view help sell him as someone dangerous.

As Danny’s more sinister nature begins to reveal itself, the documentary soundman (James Ryan Babson) becomes more uncomfortable with the things they record. He insists “we’re complicit!” but within the context of the film, it’s either an overreaction or a heavy-handed commentary on our societal tendency to sit back and watch while our politicians play fast and loose with the rules.

The movie wants us to wake up and find ourselves uncomfortable with those we put into office, but in the context of the real world, Danny isn’t nearly as disturbing as some of the actual people holding power right now.

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That’ll Do

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Pig

by Hope Madden

A quick plot synopsis of co-writer/director Michael Sarnoski’s Pig suggests a very specific image. Nicolas Cage plays a hermetic truffle hunter whose beloved pig is kidnapped. He uses his particular set of skills to find her.

You are almost undoubtedly thinking this is John Wick, swapping Cage for Keanu and a pig for a puppy.

Nope.

This touching film—a tale of love, loss, authenticity and a good meal— is essentially the anti-John Wick. And we are better for it.

Cage’s legacy will rightfully be of an unhinged and singular talent—and also an actor who never turns down a gig. But every decade or so the stars align and Cage gets to stretch, he gets to underact. He hasn’t delivered as nuanced or thoughtful a performance since David Gordon Green’s 2013 film Joe.

Lurking, silent and disheveled, his character hitches a ride with the only soul who contacts him regularly, Amir (Alex Wolff, Hereditary), the slick wholesaler who takes his truffles off his hands each Wednesday.

As the two climb the ladder of potential kidnappers, from other outdoorsy truffle hunters to middlemen to chefs and higher still, Sarnoski mimics the beats of a vengeance thriller like John Wick or Taken, but he does this only to subvert expectations. It turns out, when your only real goal is to retrieve something beloved and lost to you, bloodshed doesn’t rank high in your thoughts.

A uniformly strong supporting cast and their priceless reactions to Cage’s vagabond presence not only illuminate the pretension Sarnoski hopes to call attention to in Portland’s high-end restaurant culture. They give the actor the chance to react.

Cage is almost always the center of attention in every film. It’s tough to look away from him because you’re afraid you’ll miss some insane grimace or wild gesture, but also because filmmakers love him and never pull away. Sarnoski asks you to wait for it. He gives Cage time to pause, breathe, and deliver his most authentic performance in ages.

I guarantee the folks to my left at this screening were here for Cage Uncaged! ™ Hopefully they appreciated the fact that they didn’t get it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-hFLl7mYlw&t=3s

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Barking Up the Right Tree

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The Hidden Life of Trees

by Brandon Thomas

Based on the 2015 book of the same name, The Hidden Life of Trees is a fascinating documentary that explores the complexity of how trees live, and how human beings have learned – and sometimes failed – to understand their slow-moving life cycles. 

Jörg Adolph and Jan Haft’s film follows self-described “guardian of the forest,” forester Peter Wohlleben (also the book’s author) through a series of interviews and tours as he describes the complicated lives of trees – from their reproduction, their slow defense from bugs, and how certain trees have a social system. Wohlleben’s approach isn’t off-putting in a dry, clinical way – it’s full of passion and even protectiveness.

The Hidden Life of Trees uses stunning time-lapse footage of the German forests to get into the “meat and potatoes” of how trees work. It’s incredibly helpful in making the subject matter easily digestible for viewers who don’t have knowledge of the inner workings of forests.

This “dual personality” approach to telling its story helps The Hidden Life of Trees maintain a level of nimbleness. The sections focusing on Wohlleben teeter back and forth between the forester espousing scientific facts then suddenly switching to a more philosophical approach in regard to his overall impact on forestry. Wohlleben’s activism doesn’t feel born out of desperation. His activism is born out of pure love of the forests. 

The time-lapse scenes feel much like a traditional nature documentary, and I half expected Sir David Attenborough to provide narration. The photography is so well done that it’s easy to gloss over the information being provided because of the film’s beauty. 

Much of what makes the film work is in how it approaches what we might normally think of as mundane. Trees are a constant. They are found in every country and on nearly every continent. Most of us don’t give too much thought to the trees that line our street or populate our yards. But Adolph and Haft showcase that these living beings have agency even if we can’t see it with the naked eye.

The Hidden Life of Trees isn’t a preachy film. No, for a film so steeped in the plight of nature and conservation, it’s much more interested in educating and guiding the audience along.

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Straddling Borders

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I Carry You with Me

by Hope Madden

If the final act of I Carry You with Me has a documentary feel about it, that makes good sense. Director/co-writer Heidi Ewing—known primarily for docs including Jesus Camp and The Boys of Baraka—takes on her first narrative feature by spinning a love story based in fact.

Ewing’s subjects, Iván Garcia and Gerardo Zabaleta, are NYC restauranteurs who fell in love in Mexico in the 1990s. Though Ewing grounds her fable in their present day, the bulk of the film waxes youthful and romantic back in Mexico.

Young, closeted Iván (Armando Espitia) dreams of putting his culinary skills to use so he can provide for his young son, whose mother rarely allows him to visit. He meets Gerardo (Christian Vazquez) and they fall in love, but dreams of the success that evades him at home propel Iván north.

And though the film’s title aptly captures the longing between separated lovers, it carries with it a great deal more. Ewing conjures the phantom ache that follows Iván the rest of his life without his son, his family and the home he knew.

Yes, the film, co-written with Alan Page, leads inevitably to the couple’s modern-day dilemma. They’ve worked their way up from nothing, lived and achieved the American dream, but are essentially caged. Iván’s son has grown up without him. He will never be allowed to come here, and if Iván returns to Mexico to see him he risks losing Gerardo and his American dream forever.

I Carry You with Me never feels like a blunt instrument. In much the way Ewing did with her documentaries, she weaves true tales with humanity and honesty so they resonate. A documentary’s best chance of affecting change is by helping an audience see themselves in the lives on the screen. Ewing did that with her many docs. She does it again here.