Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Suddenly Salad

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Yes, God, Yes

by Hope Madden

A few years back, Gillian Robespierre and Karen Maine co-wrote Obvious Child, a whip-smart subversion of rom-com tropes that went on to be our nation’s first and still best mainstream abortion comedy.

How did it succeed? It lived in a low key, non-sentimental world and gifted a remarkable comedic talent (Jenny Slate) with an outstanding character.

Fast forward half a dozen years and Maine has moved on to directing the solo writing effort Yes, God, Yes. But she’s clearly learned from the previous experience, crafting an unsentimental but tender coming-of-age film—a teen sex comedy, if you will—from the female perspective.

And again, she relies on a genuine talent to deliver the goods.

Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things) is Alice, a Catholic high school junior who has done absolutely nothing (regardless of one persistent rumor), but still thinks she may be a budding pervert hurtling toward eternal damnation.

It seems a lot of people may harbor that same suspicion of Alice.

Alice, like basically everyone in high school, is in for some awkward times. Dyer is wonderfully expressive, especially in her most quiet moments. Her understated comedic energy belies a gawky sweetness that makes Alice easy to root for.

Maine’s script is equally insightful, funny and tender. The humor rarely gets too crude, although there’s no question of the film’s R rating. Still, the film never loses its relatively innocent sensibility.

Yes, God, Yes is occasionally hampered by broad stroke depictions and the story ends up feeling fairly slight.

What Maine principally points out, though, is not the insidious problem of sexual repression festering inside Catholic education (because that too easy a target). Rather, the filmmaker offers a clear eyed if forgiving picture of human beings, each one struggling to “figure out their own shit.”

Honestly, I can think of no lesson more important for a teen to learn (although that bit of advice about protecting your online passwords is solid, too).

Yes, God, Yes will be available on UK Digital Download from 17th August and can be pre-ordered here

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Elemental, My Dear

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Radioactive

by George Wolf

Honestly, I’m not digging this title, yet it somehow fits.

For the story of an intellectual giant, Radioactive seems too easy, too cheesy, and a bit dismissive. Similarly, the film itself becomes a sum of often conflicting parts, flirting with greatness while chasing too many bad pitches.

Rosamund Pike stars as Marie Sklodowska Curie, the Warsaw-born scientist who became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, the first person to win it again and the only person to win it in two different scientific fields. Her groundbreaking work in France with husband Pierre Curie identified two new elements (polonium and radium) and the theory of radioactivity itself, leading to world-changing advancements in medicine and, of course, warfare.

Director Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis, The Voices) seems intent on honoring Curie’s spirit via the most experimental film treatment she can get away with. Animated graphics attempt to illustrate Curie’s theories on atomic movement, while tones are jarringly shifted with futuristic vignettes that glimpse the more devastating consequences of radioactivity.

Too often, Satrapi is hamstrung by screenwriter Jack Thorne’s overly broad and simplified adaptation of Lauren Redniss’s source book, which is itself a work of original art, photographs, graphics and text. Bringing such hybrid energy to the screen demands a unified vision from writer and director, but Satrapi and Thorne seem at odds whenever they try to expand their scope.

Pike is the unifier here, with an instantly engaging and fully formed portrait of a genius understandably ferocious about defending her work from being usurped or dismissed by male colleagues. Pike humanizes Curie with a mix of defiance and insecurity, frank sexuality and a fierce commitment to husband Pierre (Sam Riley, in a thoughtfully understated and effective turn).

The third act addition of Anya-Taylor Joy as the Curie’s eldest daughter Irene (who would also win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry) only cements the film as being most resonant when it is the most personal.

And it can’t go unnoticed that in these science-denying times, Curie’s story is a needed reminder of the importance of pursuing knowledge, of research and researchers.

Curie was one for ages. Radioactive does suffer from scattered elements, but ultimately turns in watchable, satisfying results.

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Home Away from Home

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The Rental

by Hope Madden

Dave Franco has made a movie. James Franco’s younger, less creepy brother has been a welcome, smiling face in films since his teens. Directing his first feature, he sidesteps the more obvious choice of a comedy – given his background – and instead delivers a tense horror about jealousy, deteriorating relationships, and the dangers of Airbnb.

Dan Stevens stars as Charlie, handsome and successful older brother of Josh (Jeremy Allen White). As if Josh doesn’t have enough to live up to, his beloved and brilliant girlfriend Mina (Sheila Vand) is Charlie’s work partner and the two just really click.

Together Mina and Charlie land a big deal. To celebrate, they and their significant others—Josh, plus Charlie’s wife Michelle (Alison Brie, Franco’s real life wife)—rent a gorgeous, off the grid place for a weekend getaway.

If you’re thinking this is an incredibly common premise jazzed up with a couple of impressive actors, you are correct. But there’s a lot to be said for a good cast.

All four convey a lived-in chemistry that gives the relationship conflicts more resonance. Brie and White, in particular, deliver believable warmth as big sister-in-law/little brother-in-law. Both are dealing with some jealousy, each lending support and guidance to the other. Secondary characters in indie horror are rarely given this kind of opportunity to breathe, but drawing the audience into these relationships benefits the tensions Franco is working to create.

Stevens and Vand work wonders as the morally conflicted central characters. Vand (exquisite in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night—see it!) blends righteous indignation with guilty conscience. This helps her build believable motives for what could, in lesser hands, feel like conveniently poor decision making.

Liberal guilt, entitlement, questionable morality and selfishness rarely come packaged as sympathetically as Charlie, but Stevens is a solid character actor and here he creates a nicely complex character.

Rounding out the small ensemble, the always welcome Toby Huss also finds layers in a character that could easily have been one note.

So, performances are solid and Franco delivers a decent sleight of hand by Act 3. The film feels imbalanced by then, though, as if it wasn’t until  the 11th hour that Franco decided this was a horror movie. There’s enough suffering in the final reel to clarify The Rental’s genre, but that doesn’t mean it entirely works.

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Unforgiven

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Retaliation

by Seth Troyer

Written by Geoff Thompson, a survivor of sexual abuse, Retaliation is a loosely autobiographical descent into the pain and violence that can come in the aftermath of trauma. Orlando Bloom steps up to this challenging material with surprising ease.

Any Lord of the Rings jokes you may want to make will be silenced within the first few minutes as you see Bloom fully embody the character of Malky. He has been tormented all his life by the memory of being molested as a child by a local priest.

Malky is a powder keg ready to blow, attempting to channel this energy into his construction job, demolishing dilapidated churches with vengeful satisfaction. Where the film truly amps up is when he realizes his abuser has returned to preaching in Malky’s hometown.

What follows almost feels like Ingmar Bergman making a John Wick film (in a good way, for the most part). Bloom and the film itself may not perfectly execute every complex maneuver they attempt, but they often reach heights that are undeniably moving.

Brothers Ludwig and Paul Shammasian are a competent directing duo, though they make some choices that threaten to turn the film into an exploitive, bass pulsing thriller that doesn’t suit the material. In addition, several characters—Malky’s girlfriend Emma (Jane Montgomery) among them—often feel less like characters and more like plot tools despite the actors’ best efforts. 

In the end, what does shine through is the writer’s personal story, offering a brooding character study rather than a simple revenge thriller.

Thompson has stated on his website that, like Malky, he struggled with a thirst for violence and revenge. His demons are clearly being exorcised here.

The film’s intense conclusion, where Malky and his old priest finally cross paths, has been understandably divisive for audiences. Regardless, the questions this showdown raises are well worth discussing.

While you will probably never find a Retaliation DVD for sale at a Christian book store, the film’s sentiment seems far from atheistic. It unflinchingly condemns the corruption that can come from organized religion, but also appears to have a strange sort of reverence for the idea of God and biblical teachings. It’s a brutal concoction that makes for a fascinating and unique experience.

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Paint it Black

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The Painted Bird

by Cat McAlpine

If you paint the wings of a sparrow (or stitch a star to his jacket) the rest of the flock will no longer recognize him. The other birds will swarm and peck him until he plummets back to the earth. This is just one of the horrific lessons a young boy learns as he desperately searches for anywhere or anyone safe in war-torn Eastern Europe.

The Painted Bird is a nearly three hour long misery epic that follows this young boy, unnamed until the final shot of the film, looking for home during World War II. His parents have left him in the care of an elderly woman as they flee the Germans. But his banishment to the countryside cannot spare him from the horrors of the holocaust.

This film is hard to get through. Forty viewers walked out of its 2019 Toronto Film Festival showing. I would’ve walked out too, given the chance. The opening scene finds the young boy (Petr Kotlár) being chased through the woods. Another group of boys catch him. They rip away the small pet gripped in his arms, so quickly that it’s hard to identify, and they set it on fire. As he is beaten, the boy turns his head and watches his pet run in screaming circles until it dies. And then it gets worse.

What follows is a brutal parade of the worst humanity has to offer. Domestic abuse, graphic violence, multiple instances of animal abuse and death, rape, child abuse and rape, and more. Then the war crimes start around hour three.

The tale is an adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński ‘s 1965 novel of the same name, which made one of Time’s 100 Best Novels lists. Though lauded, the book is no less controversial, and is just as riddled with cruelty.

Directed and adapted by Václav Marhoul, the final product is beautifully shot in black and white. But the lack of color doesn’t make the rotten core of The Painted Bird any less pungent. Without color, Marhoul creates gut- wrenching scenes all the more visceral by adding textures like wet eyeballs on a dusty floor or the violent placement of a bottle that made me retch.

I won’t let it go unmentioned that while violence and depravity are the overarching themes, women have some of the worst characterizations in The Painted Bird. They are either mothers or depraved sexual deviants, or mothers of dead children who have since become sexual deviants. A few are witches.

Everyone is painted darkly, but with more male characters there are more opportunities for men to be shown in shades of gray.

The real conflict at the center of The Painted Bird is understanding how we use art to honestly bear witness to our cultural horrors. I cannot and would not recommend this film to anyone, it was too awful to watch. But you could argue that this is precisely why it must be seen.

The Painted Bird is a well-shot, well performed, and incredibly moving piece of cinema that is peppered with familiar faces (Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgard, Julian Sands). You simply have to be willing to go where it wants to take you. And all of those places are dark.

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Manhood

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Father Soldier Son

by George Wolf

If Boyhood showed us how deeply affecting it can be to watch actors age with their character arcs, Father Soldier Son keeps it even more real.

In what amounts to a condensed version of Michael Apted’s Up documentary series, directors Leslye Davis and Catrin Einhorn follow a military family over a nearly ten year period of pain, hope and personal growth.

We first meet 13 year-old Isaac Eisch and his eight year-old brother Joey waiting for their father Brian – a third generation soldier – to come home from Afghanistan in 2011. The boys are staying with their Uncle during Brian’s tour, but are eagerly awaiting Dad’s two-week return to their Wisconsin home.

Three years later, things have changed.

Brian has lost his lower left leg to a battle wound but has gained Maria, an endlessly supportive and understanding girlfriend. As Brian deals with his anger and feelings of inadequacy, his boys are watching. Despite an earlier vow to remain unchanged by war, he has changed, and his sons are changing, too.

On the surface, this is an immersive and highly effective documentary on the commitment and sacrifice of military families. But the inescapable and important thread underneath is the complex bond of masculinity passed between fathers and sons.

Davis and Einhorn, in their feature debut, give us incredibly revealing moments with the Eisch family. From the simple joys and sweet affection to the missed opportunities and immeasurable pain, the film’s view is clear-eyed but without judgement, often speaking to themes of manhood and patriotism with a sobering honesty.

The point is a purpose in life, and how hard it can be not only to find it, but to feel like you’ve found it. We ache with this family and cheer for them, even when their choices might disappoint us.

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Living Deliciously

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First Cow

by Hope Madden

Kelly Reichardt films tell a story, but not in the traditional Hollywood sense. She draws you into an alien environment, unveils universal humanity and shows you something about yourself, about us. There’s usually a story buried in there somewhere. In this case, it’s about two outsiders in 19th Century Oregon who find friendship.

And a cow.

Cookie (John Magaro) is a gentle soul, not properly built for the fur trade. (You saw The Revenant, right?) He’s a baker at heart, not that he gets to do much baking on a trapping expedition with hungry, volatile, hunt-weary men.

He holds no value for these men, and has nothing in common with them. But somehow he sees a kinship with the naked Chinese man he stumbles upon as he forages for mushrooms in the woods.

It’s sweet and sad the way Cookie and King-Lu (Orion Lee) fall into a relationship. King-Lu has ambitions. He opens Cookie’s eyes to opportunities he’d never had the courage to consider. Through these characters Reichardt demonstrates how fragile, lovely and heartbreaking hope can be.

Working again with regular collaborator Jonathan Raymond, whose novel the two adapted, Reichardt keeps you pulling for her heroes. The narrative lulls you with understated conversations and observations while the meticulously captured natural beauty onscreen beguiles. Within that, we see the potential of a young country through the eyes of Americans determining the dream.

Reichardt explores loneliness in all her films, the sense that we are each simply and inevitably alone, though we struggle against it regardless. This exploration isn’t hurried. It breathes. She emphasizes the longing for connection in every quiet moment with her characteristic use of lighting, the way she frames nature and the naturalistic performances she draws from Lee and Magaro.

William Tyler’s lonesome score offers something both mournful and tender, which is fitting. Although these men’s very existence in this place testifies to hardy ambition, Reichardt lingers on moments of gentle camaraderie.

When Kelly Reichardt tells a story, she breaks your heart. She does it slowly and quietly, but it’s broken nonetheless.

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Battle Scars

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Ghosts of War

by Hope Madden

Here’s the thing about horror movies in 2020: they have to one up 2020. This year itself is such a horror show, it’s hard for cinema to keep up.

Writer/director Eric Bress (The Butterfly Effect) does what he can with the supernatural war tale, Ghosts of War.

Five WWII soldiers are ordered to hold tight in a French mansion circa 1944. It’s an isolated estate, once a Nazi stronghold. Terrible things happened there, and even though the surroundings suggest luxury, the mission may be the most dangerous the platoon has ever faced.

It reminds me of that time earlier this year when COVID trapped a Bolivian orchestra inside a haunted German castle surrounded by wolves.

So the film has that to compete with. Of course, the other thing Ghosts of War has going against it is the surprisingly engaging and unfortunately underseen Overlord, a WWII horror show that drops us alongside a handful of soldiers into war torn France just in time to find zombies.

Very little is more fun than Nazi zombies.

But Bress isn’t interested in zombies. Instead, he explores the madness that weighs on men who’ve done the unthinkable by trapping them in a situation where they must face their demons.

Kyle Gallner delivers an appropriately haunted performance as one of the soldiers—each of whom Bress characterizes with quick, shorthand ideas: the nut job (Gallner), the smartypants (Pitch Perfect’s Skylar Astin), the hero (Theo Rossi), the big talker (Alan Ritchson), the leader who’s in over his head (Brenton Thwaites).

Gallner and Astin are the only cast members given the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the pack as the platoon stumbles upon evidence of the haunting. Bress and his ensemble stumble here, rarely developing any real dread, infrequently even delivering the jumps their quick cut scares attempt.

Ghosts of War makes an effort to say something meaningful. That message is waylaid by confused second act plotting and a third act reveal that feels far more lurid and opportunistic than it does resonant or haunting.

Bress tries to take advantage of the audience’s preconceived notions in order to subvert expectations, but he doesn’t have as much to say as he thinks.

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Rise and Fall of the Latitude Society

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In Bright Axiom

by Seth Troyer

A startup takes on a mysterious name: The Latitude Society. They have decided to use their money to give people an “experience” by making art installations sprinkled with cultish undertones. Eventually, when they begin asking for money to fund these happenings, the public says,“that was fun, but, no thank you.” In the aftermath, Latitude decides to use money that they apparently had all along to film a documentary about themselves.

Rather than making a truthful 20-minute documentary, Latitude created a documentary that attempts to fuse the stories and rumors they perpetuate with their apparently true experiences. It’s essentially a game where the audience’s goal is to discern fact from fiction, and this detective work is enjoyable for the first thirty minutes. However, once you get the hang of separating their truths from their very obvious lies, it all becomes increasingly uninteresting.

For the remainder of the runtime I waited for a twist, for it to maybe turn humorous like This Is Spinal Tap, or perhaps horrific like The Blair Witch Project. I won’t give too much away, but unfortunately, it continues to play the same games from start to finish.

We are given reenactments and interviews with folks involved, speaking of “you just had to be there” moments that may or may not have occurred. Even if they did happen, the stories are soon lost in the shuffle, getting mixed in with so much fiction that they become rather meaningless.

It’s sweet of these hippies to want to give us something memorable, but just because they continually tell us we’re having “an experience” doesn’t mean it’s an enjoyable one.

The real value here comes from seeing it all as a test: how long does it take to spot trickery, to smell time, money and energy being wasted? How long does it take you to leave the room?

If this was filmmaker Spencer McCall’s intent, then he has indeed made something in the spirit of actual anti-establishment, psychonauts like Robert Anton Wilson (whose quote at the beginning of this film adds a half star to this review). Sadly, this does not seem to be the case. Maybe McCall could have spent more time actually reading Wilson’s books and less time on these enlightenment role playing games.

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Tugging Hearts, Slashing Throats

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The Old Guard

by Hope Madden

Let’s start with this piece of obviousness: Charlize Theron can do anything. From indie dramas to bawdy comedies to badass action, Theron commits and convinces.

In Netflix’s The Old Guard, she plays the leader of a small but immortal group of soldiers eluding capture while trying to train a new member. It’s Book One in a series, and that can be a dangerous spot for a film because that tends to mean a lot of exposition and not enough conflict.

Not here.

Greg Rucka adapts his own source material and director Gina Prince-Bythewood makes the most of his screenplay and her cast.

She flanks Theron (spectacular, obviously) with actors who are, first and foremost, talented actors. The fact that they make for believable mercenaries is a really excellent bonus.

The ever versatile Matthias Schoenaerts gives the film its aching heart while KiKi Layne proves herself to be as convincing here busting heads as she was at drawing tears in If Beale Street Could Talk. Though it’s unfortunate he couldn’t have stolen a little more screen time, the great Chiwetel Ejiofor is a welcome presence, as always.

So what Prince-Bythewood does is surround Theron with other talented actors whose versatility compliments hers. This brilliant move let the filmmaker take a somewhat by-the-numbers superhero tale and tell it with a restraint that takes advantage of her cast’s flexibility and talent.

In Prince-Bythewood’s hands, The Old Guard explores the same universal themes mined in most superhero films, but she tells the tale as a taut and tactical military experience. The understatement makes the action sequences stand out, the filmmaker requesting your close examination of each bout and each battle, whether hand-to-hand, bullet-to-brain or saber-to-throat.

It pays off, delivering a thrilling action movie that doesn’t disregard your brain. Even better, this is a movie that tugs at your emotions without the need for swelling strings or sentiment to convince you.

That’s what happens when one formidable women pulls together a group of similarly skilled badasses.