Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

Gatorcane

Crawl

by George Wolf

Just when you thought it was safe to explore your Florida crawlspaces during a Category 5, here comes Crawl to remind us that while Sharknadoes put tongues in cheeks, Gatorcanes are looking to remove the whole head.

Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario) is a University of Florida swimmer (a Gator!), which comes in pretty handy when she ignores evacuation orders to look for the father that always challenged her to do better in the pool.

Dave Keller (Barry Pepper) is lying injured in a soggy basement, and even before Haley finds him, she finds that they are not alone.

Director Alexandre Aja (High Tension, Piranha 3D, The Hills Have Eyes remake) utilizes the confines of the flooding house to fine effect. Walls, pipes and tight corners create natural barriers between gator and bait, but as the water level keeps rising, Aja finds plenty of room for simmering tension and effective jump scares.

Plus plenty of bloodletting. Oh, yes, people do get eaten.

This survival tale doesn’t worry too much about suspending disbelief. It just keeps the water rising, the obstacles mounting (Haley’s “You gotta be fucking kidding me” speaks for all of us) and the visual effects nimble and nifty.

Writers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen get a bit too enamored with the father/daughter estrangements and swim team parlance (“You’re faster than they are! Swim!”), but Scodelario provides a capable anchor, giving Haley authentic layers of toughness and grit.

Aja and the effects team do the rest, enough to make Crawl an often entertaining creature and bloody fun summer feature.

Ride Share

Stuber

by Hope Madden

Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani actually have more in common than you might think. Both are charming, funny, likable oddballs and both are outstanding on Twitter.

That last bit is less meaningful as they team up in the bromance romp Stuber.

Bautista plays Vic, a weirdly muscular LA cop. Nanjiani’s Stu is an Uber driver. Vic has eye surgery the same day he gets a tip on a big drug deal going down. Unable to drive, he presses his Uber driver into involuntary service.

Hijinks…oh the hijinks.

The main problem with this movie is that it’s idiotic.

A handful of other actors, including Natalie Morales and Mira Sorvino, sleepwalk through the most rote buddy cop movie you’ve ever seen basically to create a backdrop for Nanjiani to make being the voice of reason sound so funny.

He’s basically playing Kumail Nanjiani, which is, of course, the role he was born to play.

Bautista has a tougher row to hoe. He can’t sell the physical comedy, which is the point of his giant, bumbling, near-blind-and-yet-still-driving-and-shooting-weapons character.

Think Mr. Magoo meets Dirty Harry meets a bunch of steroids.

Dude, that should be comedy gold, especially in the hands of director Michael Dowse, whose classic hockey comedy Goon understood the charm of the blundering, violent dumbass.

Writer Tripper Clancy (that’s a name!) doesn’t help, as the only interesting ideas he has—the one he’s hung his entire screenplay on—he stole outright from Deadpool.

Hey! You know what was funny? Deadpool.

It’s too bad because both Nanjiani and Bautista deserve a lot better than this low-aiming and forgettable mess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jt3g8CjX8k

Glasgow Skyline

Wild Rose

by Matt Weiner

“Three chords and the truth” is the driving spirit that runs throughout Wild Rose. It’s the reason aspiring country singer Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) doesn’t just love the genre, she lives it. She has it tattooed on her arm, and her dream of Nashville superstardom buoys her otherwise dreary working-class life in Glasgow.

It’s also an apt quote to hang the movie on. From the opening setup, you already know the notes and you know the progression.  But darned if Buckley doesn’t still have something to say, and in a voice that can’t be ignored.

Buckley (Taboo, Beast) animates every frame as Rose-Lynn, fresh from a year in jail for drug charges and defiant at anyone and anything that comes between her and the country fantasy world she has built her life around.

This includes her long-suffering mother and two young children. Far more supportive is her new employer, the posh Susannah (Sophie Okonedo), who hears Rose-Lynn singing while cleaning her house and encourages her to send a recording to the BBC.

Of course Susannah’s support comes at the expense of Rose-Lynn hiding pertinent background details, and it’s this central tension between following your dreams and making a life of what you already have that concerns most of the drama.

But even if Rose-Lynn’s path is a familiar one, the movie (written by Nicole Taylor and directed by Tom Harper) still imbues her arc with touching consideration and naturalistic ups and downs. Thanks in large part to Buckley, who brings a gut-wrenching humanity to each inevitable screw-up, it’s a journey that is compelling and well-earned—no small feat for the kind of story where at least some cathartic triumph is the payoff we expect for all those bumps along the road.

Wild Rose raises some truly thorny questions about the pursuit of art and the expectations surrounding that. While Rose-Lynn’s story arrives at an answer a bit too neatly, it’s no less catchy of a refrain. There’s a reason that Nashville sound churned out so many hits.



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Woman’s Woman

Darlin’

by Hope Madden

In  2011, filmmaker Lucky McKee unleashed the subversive, feminist horror jewel The Woman to a lot of boos at Sundance. It’s tough viewing, no doubt—the screener we were sent to review prior to its release arrived wrapped in a vomit bag—but it amounted to an envelope-pushing miracle of modern horror.

The film itself was a sequel to the underwhelming 2009 cannibal horror penned by Jack Ketchum, Offspring. The point of both films was that only a doomed moron underestimates Pollyanna McIntosh.

McIntosh (The Walking Dead) returns to the feral, nameless role that’s caused such a ruckus over the years, this time taking charge of the woman’s trajectory by writing and directing the latest installment, Darlin’.

Darlin’ picks up some years after the end of The Woman. McIntosh’s alpha and Darlin’ (Lauryn Canny), the adolescent whose grown in her care since the events of McKee’s flick, approach a hospital. Filthy, communicating with grunts and probably smelling pretty foul, the two split up as the girl enters the hospital.

To the dismay of the unrealizing Woman, the system’s not about to let her back out.

What follows is a sloppy, superficial finger-wagging at Catholicism, which is unfortunate. Not because the church deserves more respect than that—it doesn’t, really—but because there may be no lazier strawman in horror right now than the Roman Catholic Church, and McIntosh doesn’t even bother to get a single dogmatic or ritualistic point accurate.

Let me pause. Pollyanna McIntosh is a sort of hero of mine and The Woman is an all-time favorite. You have no idea how much I wanted to like this film or how much slack I was likely to give. The raw truth is that very little about the film merits praise.

McIntosh still cuts a mighty impressive figure as the nameless beast running the show. Canny, however, struggles with her Tarzan-style dialog.

The always capable Nora-Jane Noone, playing the church’s one good nun, serves mainly as a painful reminder. Those of us who saw her breakout film The Magdalene Sisters remember how cinematically powerful the horrors of Catholicism really can be.

There’s an underfed side plot about a loving nurse and an ill-fitting storyline about a group of homeless women, all of which coalesce with the evil priest core story in a bat-shit climax that almost makes the ride worthwhile.

It’s unfortunate, because there are three or four moments in this film of unique, subversive horror. They flash across the screen and then are gone, drown out by lazily written, listlessly directed cliché.

Dearly Beloved

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

by Hope Madden

Before Toni Morrison was old enough to understand the F-word her mother had her washing off the sidewalk, she understood the confrontational nature and the power of words.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am benefits from the Octogenarian Nobel and Pulitzer prize winner’s characteristically mesmerizing ruminations on her life. As she sits and recounts memories, moments and, most fascinating, glimpses of her writing inspirations, the documentary blossoms.

Compared to the composed and thoughtful interview footage with the likes of Dick Cavett and others from across her career, Morrison’s interaction for Greenfield-Sanders’s camera has a playful quality.

She charms when recounting her personal history: “When I got to Howard, I was loose,” she recalls happily. “I probably overdid it. I don’t regret it.”

Her confidence when considering her life in publishing is awesome. “Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn’t even interesting.”

And when she speaks about her writing—just, wow: “My sovereignty and my authority as a racialized person had to be struck immediately with the very first book. The white world was peripheral if it existed at all.”

It comes as no surprise that someone with such breathtaking mastery of the language would be as beguiling when speaking as she is in writing, and the veteran documentarian knows when to just turn the camera toward his subject and let it roll.

Sure, some context has to be provided. We get biographical information. We see snippets of news shows, hear from famous fans (Oprah, Angela Davis, Sonia Sanchez, Walter Moseley—Toni Morrison has impressive fans). But honestly, this is when Greenfield-Sanders’s documentary gets away from him.

Allowing the audience some background they may not have concerning Morrison’s struggle to be appreciated in her own time, or the bold and culturally imperative choices she made as an editor, or the global reaction to her novels feels necessary. It also feels superficial.

Worse still, it feels like a cheat—like these were moments that could have been spent listening to Toni Morrison tell us something. Anything. This is particularly stinging when we’re finally allowed a sentence or two about how Beloved was inspired. Morrison tells of a vision that suggests there is something genuinely magical, something otherworldly, about her process.

It’s a hint, but it’s impossible not to want more, not to feel as though we could have chucked all that gushing from fans, all those archival interviews, all those photos from Howard and just listen to Toni Morrison tell us a story.

Art for Art’s Sake

Pasolini

by Brandon Thomas

Abel Ferrera, the filmmaker behind Ms. 45, The Driller Killer, and Bad Lieutenant, was maybe too perfect of a choice to depict the final 24 hours in the life of Italian artist Pier Pasolini. While this love letter to Pasolini never quite succumbs to standard biopic syndrome, it also doesn’t fully rise above being anything more than hero worship.

After Pier Pasolini (Willem Dafoe) puts the finishing touches on his masterpiece, Salò, the provocative writer, critic, activist and filmmaker returns to Rome to visit with his family. During the course of this relatively normal day, Pasolini takes part in an interview, meets with fellow artists, and cruises the evening looking for a lover. While the day’s events seem mundane and boring for someone typically known as a notorious hellraiser, all of this leads to a tragic outcome on a beach outside of Ostia, Italy.

It’s evident early on that this movie is in awe of Pasolini. The film doesn’t depict Pasolini’s last day as much as it observes it. Ferrera treats the banal dealings of this 24-hour period with reverence. Pasolini’s life and work is church. The man himself is Jesus. 

Where the spirit of Pasolini is sincerely felt is when Ferrera brings the artist’s works to life. A segment from a novel he’s currently working on is realized with graphic depiction as Pasolini’s character, based on the author himself, has an intense sexual encounter with a young man. Another segment finds two men looking for the famed Feast of Fertility Festival where gay men and women come together for one night to procreate. Neither segment adds to Pasolini’s plot (or what exists of one), but they are so categorically Pasolini in tone, spirit and theme that the stillness of the movie is finally shaken alive.

While the lack of narrative momentum causes the film to stumble, Dafoe stuns as the titular character. He doesn’t play Pasolini as much as he channels the spirit of the late artist. Pasolini’s cool and equal indifference flows through Dafoe’s body language and speech like second nature. His Pasolini is a man equally at home with who he his, but also incredibly bored with the person he has become.

Ferrera’s biggest mistake with Pasolini is that he cares too much about the man himself. While Dafoe’s equal admiration leads to a strong anchoring performance, Ferrara’s unwillingness to push the narrative leaves the film largely lifeless and inert. 


Teen Titan

Spider-Man: Far From Home

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Spider-Man: Far From Home has more than a webshooter up its sleeve.

One part reflection on the state of MCU, one part statement on our cartoonishly ridiculous world today, one part charming coming-of-age tale, the latest Spidey episode almost takes on more than it can carry. But return writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers embrace franchise strengths while betting director Jon Watts, also back from Homecoming, can maneuver slick surprises.

The wager pays off, and Far From Home winds up being a film that feels a bit campy for a while, but in retrospect succeeds precisely because of those early over-the-top moments.

Peter Parker (the immeasurably charming Tom Holland), having returned from oblivion (Infinity War), then universal salvation and personal loss (Endgame), would like a vacation. The poor kid just wants to take a trip abroad with his class and get a little closer to his crush MJ (Zendaya).

But that is not to be, is it?

Not with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) following him across the globe, or the surprise appearance of Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), a new monster-slayer from another Earthly dimension.

“You mean there really is a multi-verse?”

That’s a nice nod to the stellar animated Spidey adventure from last year, and a big clue about how self-aware this chapter is determined to be. The front and center ponderings about what Peter (and by extension, Marvel) is going to do now threaten to collapse the film from self-absorption.

To the rescue: a jarring and unexpected pivot, and that wonderfully youthful vibe that now has one eye on growing up.

Interestingly, Tony Stark fills in for the guilt-inducing father figure that’s always been missing from this iteration of Peter Parker’s tale. Without Uncle Ben, Stark becomes that hallowed hero whose shadow threatens to obliterate the fledgling Avenger.

Peter’s still a teenager, after all, and Homecoming soared from embracing that fact, and from Holland’s ability to sell it in all its wide-eyed and awkward glory.

He still does, but now our hero’s naiveté is shaken by some mighty timely lessons. Number one: “It’s easy to fool people when they’re already fooling themselves.”

Not exactly subtle, but fitting for the world of a distracted teen. And for kids of all ages, there’s no denying how cathartic it is to see world leaders, their media lapdogs and widespread buffoonery on blast and blasted across the largest screens, where good will inevitably conquer.

As fun and funny as this keep-you-guessing Eurotrip is, its core is driven by a simple search for truth. And don’t leave early, because that search doesn’t stop until Far From Home plays its second post-credits hand, and you walk out re-thinking everything you just saw.

Tangled webs, indeed.

Field of Nightmares

Midsommar

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Just two features into filmmaker Ari Aster’s genre takeover and already you can detect a pattern. First, he introduces a near-unfathomable amount of grief.

Then, he drags you so far inside it you won’t fully emerge for days.

In Midsommar, we are as desperate to claw our way out of this soul-crushing grief as Dani (Florence Pugh). Mainly to avoid being alone, Dani insinuates herself into her anthropology student boyfriend Christian’s (Jack Reynor) trip to rural Sweden with his buds.

Little does she know they are all headed straight for a modern riff on The Wicker Man.

From the trip planning onward, Dani and the crew don’t make a lot of natural decisions. The abundance of drugs and the isolation of their Swedish destination make their choices more believable than they might otherwise be, but in the end, individual characters are not carved deeply or clearly enough to make their arcs resonate as terrifyingly as they might.

There are definite strengths, though—chief among them, Florence Pugh. The way she articulates Dani’s neediness and strength creates a glue that holds the story in place, allowing Aster to add spectacular visual and mythological flourishes.

Will Poulter, as Christian’s friend Mark, is another standout. Equal parts funny and loathsome, Poulter (The Revenant, Detroit) breaks tensions with needed levity but never stoops to becoming the film’s outright comic relief.

Like Hereditary, Midsommar will be polarizing among horror fans -perhaps even more so- for Aster’s confidence in his own long game. Like a Bergman inspired homage to bad breakups, this terror is deeply-rooted in the psyche, always taking less care to scare you than to keep you unsettled and on edge.

Slow, unbroken pans and gruesome detail add bleak depth to the film’s tragic prologue, leaving you open for the constant barrage of unease and disorientation to come. Carefully placed pictures and artwork leave trails of foreshadowing while the casual nature of more overt nods (“there’s a bear”) only add to the mind-fuckery.

And while Aster is hardly shy about this motives – multiple shots through open windows and doors reinforce that – it doesn’t mean they’re any less effective.

The contrast of nurturing sunlight with the darkest of intentions recalls not only Wicker Man but Texas Chainsaw Massacre for its subliminal takeover of the sacred by the profane. Pair this with the way Aster manipulates depth of field, both visual and aural, and scene after scene boasts hallucinatory masterstrokes.

Midsommar is a bold vision and wholly unnerving experience (emphasis on experience)—the kind of filmmaking the genre is lucky to have in its arsenal.

California Dreamin’

Echo in the Canyon

by George Wolf

For a musician and a record executive, it was the look of an old movie that led them down a path toward becoming documentarians.

The movie was 1969’s Model Shop, and to Jakob Dylan (Wallflowers, son of Bob) and Andrew Slater (former president of Columbia Records), that film “looked like a Beach Boys record.”

Inspiration took root, with Echo in the Canyon standing as the sweet fruit of their efforts to research and honor the music that defined the film’s setting: L.A.’s Laurel Canyon in the late 1960s.

With Slater directing and Dylan serving as producer and on screen guide, Echo digs deep into a fertile musical catalog. Mixing interviews and performances—both new and archival—the film effectively bridges the gap between those who created the music and those who continue to be inspired by it.

And, oh, the stories are priceless.

From Tom Petty (shown in one of his final interviews) winning his copy of Pet Sounds from a radio contest, to Dylan’s influence (“You’ll have to be more specific,” Jakob deadpans), to Neil Young wanting to take on some cops (“he’s Canadian!”) the tales keep coming, nearly all of them captivating.

And, of course, so is the music.

Classics from the Byrds, Beatles, Beach Boys, Mamas and the Papas and more are explored from their beginnings, and then reborn. From the studio to the stage, Jakob and assorted guest stars (Fiona Apple, Beck, Cat Power) give the songs new coats of paint, and while this approach casts vanity project shadows on Dylan the younger, the motivations always seem properly reverential.

At 82 minutes, the film does seem like it closes the curtain a bit early, but it gets the point across. By the time Graham Nash gives a near tearful declaration that Laurel Canyon in the 60s will one day stand with Paris in the 30s as a watershed of collaborative art, you’re not apt to argue.

Ghost Writer

Yesterday

by George Wolf

Hey, baby boomers (yes, my hand is up), thanks for still buying CDs!

Now please enjoy the latest installment in your Musical Movie Memories Tour, Yesterday.

We’ve already jammed to Queen and Elton, Bruce is set for August, so how about remembering how much we love the Fab Four by envisioning a world where they never existed?

It’s a conceit so instantly charming director Danny Boyle (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire) passed on the project, thinking it had already been done. He was convinced otherwise and jumped on board, bringing the script from Richard Curtis (Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually) to life with a breezy, unabashed fandom.

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, easy to root for) is a struggling musician in Suffolk who’s ready to give up on the dream. His longtime friend and manager Ellie (Lily James) protests, but Jack rides his bicycle off into the English night unsure of his future.

Fate intervenes with a brief worldwide blackout, which brings an accident, a hospital stay, and Jack waking up in a world without his two front teeth.

Or the Beatles.

That second one is pretty advantageous for Jack’s career, though the film is at its most likable early on, when Jack is trying to remember lyrics, getting nowhere on Google and chastising anyone who doesn’t instantly realize how life-changing “his” new songs are.

Of course, his protests only resonate because we’re still in the old world with him. It’s a credit to the simple genius of this premise that Yesterday can tell without showing and still pull us in. And surprise, it’s also a wonderfully organic way to strip down these songs we’ve heard for decades and remind us how truly great they are.

Jack’s star rises with a move to L.A, getting tutelage from Ed Sheehan (nicely self-deprecating as himself) and an apologetically shameless record label rep (perfectly slimy Kate McKinnon). It’s in America where Yesterday starts to drag a bit, wanting from the absence of spunky James and will-they-or-won’t-they rom that balances this com.

How that turns out, you can probably guess.

As for the musical fantasy, credit Curtis and Boyle for avoiding the easy cop out. Buy in and you’ll be rewarded with an entertaining take on life choices that’s fun to sing along with, occasionally slight but often downright fab.