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Annie Are You Okay?

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The Intruder

by George Wolf

If you caught Dennis Quaid creeping around your house on numerous occasions, would you be scared, or just figure he was bringing over some mac and cheese?

Quaid might be one of the ultimate likable dudes, and his playing waaay against type is one of promising threads that The Intruder squanders in its warmed over dish of jump scares and borrowed ideas.

Beautiful couple Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meagan Good) are living the good life in San Francisco, but Annie feels it’s time they move to the country and start a family. She finds her dream house at the Napa Valley home of Charlie Peck (Quaid), and as quickly as you can say “overly rushed setup,” they’re moving in.

Charlie says he’s selling to head South, so why is he still coming over to mow the lawn, assist with the Christmas decorations, and find reasons to be alone with Annie?

Whaddya bet he’s not really retiring to Florida, or that some guy at Scott’s office would like nothing better than dig into Charlie’s past to find what he’s hiding?

Director Deon Taylor (Traffik) and writer David Loughery (Lakeview Terrace) are both treading familiar ground, too much on autopilot to successfully mine the contrasts they introduce.

It’s old ways versus new, city versus country, and a red hat wearing white guy terrorizing a black couple.

That’s plenty to chew on, but everyone goes hungry while characters make one idiotic decision after another on the subtlety-free ride to a finale lifted verbatim from a 90s thriller.

At some point, Taylor and Loughery needed to chose a path: logical, layered tension or unhinged, over-the-top fun.

It’s clearly evident which one Quaid wanted, but both he and the film end up undecided on the remodeling plans. Like that old, musty spare room with the bad wallpaper, The Intruder is a little creepy, too often unintentionally funny and in need of some work.

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Sexplicit Content

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Ask Dr. Ruth

by Cat McAlpine

Ruth Westheimer stands only 4’ 7” tall and she knows it, mentioning her small stature frequently throughout the documentary Ask Dr. Ruth. She believes being small made her less intimidating when she took the world by storm talking frankly about sex. Ruth’s small stature also came in handy when she was grievously injured in the 1947-49 Palestine War, as she was able to stay in an overcrowded hospital by sleeping on a bookshelf.

Oh, that’s right. Ruth didn’t become Dr. Ruth until her 40’s. First she survived the holocaust in a Swiss orphanage, emigrated to Palestine, became a sniper for a Jewish paramilitary group during the war, started her education in Paris, fell in love and was married three times, emigrated to the United States, and raised a family.

Director Ryan White curates a beautiful narrative that explores Ruth’s constant position at the forefront of change and upheaval. The story flickers between a retelling of Ruth’s early life, the beginning of her career, and a reflection of what she’s managed to accomplish today. At 90 years old Ruth is still teaching classes, performing speeches, writing books, and giving advice. At one point she’s asked “Why write another book now, at 90?” (she’s published at least 30).

She replies with good humor, “What a stupid question.”

Ruth herself is a marvelous star. She’s proud of what she does – she’s kept recordings of all of her performances and you can spy flyers and posters of her appearances tacked up in her New York apartment. She’s warm and welcoming, a care-giver to her core, but she is also shockingly stoic for her jovial nature. Ruth keeps the events of her life at arm’s length. Accounts of past wars and lost loves are highlighted with animated re-enactments.

This is the point where I typically balk at documentaries. Animation or actor re-enactments often feel like a necessary evil in telling a story that cameras weren’t present for. I find the mixed media style off-putting and, honestly, tacky. In Ask Dr. Ruth though, the effect works pretty well. It helps that the dreamy animation is done with vignettes rather than characters mouthing a voice-over.

Toward the end of the film, there’s a super-cut montage of Ruth’s life. Black and white photos alternate with the beautiful animations and clips from 80’s talk shows. It’s wild and crazy, happy and sad, and so very, very Ruth.


This film is a heartwarming tale of what life is like as a refugee and an immigrant, a feminist icon who denies the label, and as a doting mother and grandmother. Allow yourself to be delightfully surprised by Ask Dr. Ruth.

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Hello Dolly

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UglyDolls

by Hope Madden

We open on what is essentially the Island of Misfit Toys. This is the moment when the adults in the UglyDolls audience need to make a choice: accept these notions stolen from far superior toy-related children’s fare as homages, or bristle at inferior product skating by on copy-catting.

It’s your choice, but your kids will mainly see a perfectly sweet, upbeat and unimaginative tale of an ugly duckling. Even better, an ugly duckling who doesn’t need to become a swan to be happy.

That duck, or that blobby pink thing, is Moxy (voiced by Kelly Clarkson). And she lives happily in Uglyville with other merrily misshapen beasties (Wanda Sykes, Blake Shelton, Pitbull, Leehom Wang, Gabriel Iglesias). But Moxie yearns for more.

On a songtastic adventure to fulfill her dream, Moxy and gang run afoul of the pretty dolls, whose leader, Lou (Nick Jonas) intends to keep them from finding the boy or girl who will love them.

Will that stop Moxy? No! She yearns for her very own Andy.

I feel safe in saying that because there’s no question director Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2) and screenwriter Alison Peck (working with characters created by Su-min Kim and David Horvath) have seen Toy Story.

Man, that was a good movie, eh? The whole series, actually. In fact, there’s one scene in Toy Story 3 that made me cry harder than any scene in any film ever. It obviously made an impact on Asbury and Peck as well, because it is lifted shamelessly for the emotional climax of UglyDolls.

When it’s not distracting you with its borderline plagiarism, UglyDolls is sledgehammering its theme. Janelle Monáe voices Mandy, a pretty doll who might be ugly deep down (a good thing). She helps beat the point home that we do not need to conform to be happy. Which is a great theme, and one that a well-made film (like, say, Shrek) can deliver without losing sight of storytelling.

The big screen leap for these critters amounts to a sweetly mediocre marketing strategy for some unattractive (but lovable!) toys.

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It Ain’t Teen Spirit

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Her Smell

by Hope Madden

“Kill your idols.”

“Give them enough rope and they will do it themselves.”

Apt lines from Alex Ross Perry’s new rock and roll meltdown, Her Smell.

You may think you’ve seen “Behind the Music” style self-destruction, but you have never seen anything quite like this.

And how great is that title?!

Writer/director Perry has a soft spot for unlikeable people. That is the most common element running through his work—Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth. So it’s no huge shock that he hasn’t made a profitable film yet. That’s a tough sell: come spend 90 minutes—or in the case of Her Smell, 144 minutes—with someone you’ll have a tough time tolerating.

Which is not to say Perry makes bad movies. He makes really good movies, they just try your patience. Her Smell has a couple of things going for it, though.

First of all, there’s train wreck appeal. Becky Something (a ferocious Elisabeth Moss) is so outrageously tough to love that you cannot look away from the downward spiral Perry dares you to witness.

The second and most important strength is Moss’s stellar turn as Something, a rocker facing the inevitable consequence of drug abuse, pathological insecurity and the shifting dynamics of the music world.

The film itself is a dizzying, self-indulgent mess, which only seems appropriate. Sean Price Williams’s restless camera captures it all. All of it. All all all. And Moss’s toxic, mascara-smeared maniac is such a loathsome explosion, you almost wish rock bottom would come, already.

Uncharacteristic of the filmmaker, though, regret and redemption color the film’s second half. It’s here that Moss’s rawness and the deeply felt character work from her supporting cast (an especially wonderful Agyness Deyn, in particular) repay you for the abuse you’ve taken for more than an hour. 

The music itself—much of it, anyway—is the film’s real weakness. But Moss, who has more than proven her mettle in basically every role she’s ever taken, is more than fearless here. She is bare, ugly authenticity and there is something transcendent about sticking it out with her.

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Power Couple

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Long Shot

by George Wolf

Long Shot‘s first success comes before the opening credits even start rolling. It’s right there on the movie poster: “Unlikely, but not impossible.”

So before you can scoff at the idea of Charlize Theron giving Seth Rogen the time ‘o day, your protest of the premise is a) acknowledged, and b) set aside, leaving plenty of loophole to just appreciate an R-rated romantic comedy that’s brash, smart, timely, and pretty damn funny.

Rogen is Fred Flarsky, a scruffy, sweatsuit-loving online journalist known for cutting-edge exposes such as “F*&^ You, Exxon,” and “The Two Party System Can Suck a D&^%.” When media monarch Rupert Murdoch, er, I mean Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis) buys the digital magazine Fred works for, he quits in protest.

Theron plays Secretary of State Charlotte Field, a graceful, brilliant stateswoman who’s ready to make a run for the Oval Office and could use a speechwriter. Back in her teens, Charlotte was Fred’s babysitter (!), and after they cross paths at an ill-fated fundraiser, he’s brought on to give Charlotte’s speeches a little of that Fred Flarsky feeling.

The surprising (but not impossible!) romance that follows doesn’t thrill Team Charlotte (the slideshow explaining how it might impact her poll numbers is a scream) but credit writers Dan Sterling (The Interview) and Liz Hannah (The Post) for having more on their minds than a dude makeover.

Keeping just enough of that Rogen stoner-comedy vibe, Long Shot skewers Bernie Bros, female candidate double standards, romantic comedy tropes, celebrity presidents and, most pointedly and hilariously of all, Fox News.

Theron and Rogen elevate every bit of it, working as a comedic power couple out in front of an ensemble cast full of standouts, most notably June Diane Raphael as Charlotte’s disapproving Chief of Staff and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. as Fred’s motivational best friend.

Director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50/50, The Night Before) keeps things grounded and character-focused. Just when the parody or implauseability is in danger of running amok, he gets us back in the semi-real world of crowd pleasing entertainment.

And though that does mean a third act that gives in to overt sentimentality, Long Shot has the heart, charm and hilarity to win you over long before then.

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Run Through It

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The River and the Wall

by Rachel Willis

Director Ben Masters has an interest in the land along the Rio Grande. In making The River and the Wall, he hopes to show us what makes the area so special.

Along with four companions – two wildlife filmmakers, an ecologist/ornithologist, and a Rio Grande river guide – Masters embarks on a weeks-long, 1200-mile trip from El Paso, Texas to the Gulf of Mexico. They travel along the Rio Grande, the potential site of a border wall that, if erected, would have a lasting, devastating impact on the land.

Most of the film screens like an adventure tale. The companions travel by mountain bike and mustang in places where the river is too shallow for boats. When the river is passable, they journey by canoe. By making the trip in this way, they hope to show the difficulty of the journey in numerous places. It’s an imperfect attempt to emphasize the unlikelihood that immigrants would choose these routes when attempting to cross into the United States.

Along the way, we meet people on both sides of the border. If there are people who live in these areas who are in favor of the wall, Masters and team don’t meet any. From people living in Mexico to ranchers in Texas, everyone recognizes the potential negative consequences to the proposed wall. Even the area U.S. representatives in Congress, Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, and Will Hurd, a Republican, are opposed to the wall. Hurd states that building a wall “is the most expensive, least effective” method for border security. It’s a rare show of bipartisanship that should give those opposed to the wall some hope.

The cinematography is essential in a film that wants to impart upon the audience the beauty, vastness, and treachery of the land, and the crew is up to the challenge. Numerous shots highlight the diversity of the landscape as the five friends make their way along the river.

In some ways, The River and the Wall effectively states its case that the area around the Rio Grande should be protected. Ecologist Heather Mackey mentions over 150 bird species live in the area, some of which are only located in this area. A wall would disrupt migration patterns, bulldoze protected natural areas, and in effect, cede nearly 1 million acres of U.S. land to Mexico.

However, it is unlikely the film will change the minds of those in favor of the wall. Most likely because they won’t even bother to see it.





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Don’t Open Until Christmas

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I Trapped the Devil

by Hope Madden

Jordan Peele is not the only one preoccupied with The Twilight Zone. First time filmmaker Josh Lobo obviously has a soft spot for one of their episodes.

Don’t look into which one, though. In fact, don’t even watch the trailer for Lobo’s indie horror I Trapped the Devil, because not knowing the outcome is half the fun.

Lobo takes us along on a Christmas visit with family. You know, those awkward gatherings where maybe your brother is a paranoid schizophrenic who keeps a man captive in his basement.

Or, maybe your brother’s right and that man is really Satan.

But let’s be honest. It’s probably the former.

As Steve (Scott Poythress) tries to convince brother Matt (AJ Bowen) and sister-in-law Karen (Susan Burke) that it’s really the latter, Lobo hovers over issues of family dysfunction, grief, and the evil in the world. He pulls none of those strings in a way that is particularly satisfying, but he is onto something.

The film’s narrative offers a nice subversion of horror’s standard “is she crazy or is there evil in the house” trope. Historically, the genre relies on some kind of common assumption about feminine hysteria to drive a tension that asks the audience to wonder whether we are witnessing a mental breakdown or whether the protagonist’s feminine intuition has led her to pick up on something malevolent.

I Trapped the Devil overturns those gender assumptions and grounds the tension in something more scientifically intriguing. Is Steve a violently disturbed man with a captive in his basement, or has he, indeed, trapped Satan?

We the audience are supposed to be weighing our options. How realistic is it that his family is kicking around the options? Not very.

Committed performances from the trio help develop a sympathetic mood. Still, Lobo struggles—as does his cast—to get reasonably from Point: There’s a Guy Locked in a Closet Downstairs to Point: No, Let’s Not Phone the Authorities Just Yet.

He also leaves too many unexplored ideas on the table: the maddening grief, the weird images on the staticky TV, how Steve got the guy down his basement in the first place.

A little ambiguity can lend to atmosphere. This much tends to feel more like lazy screenwriting.

There are flashes of real terror now and again, though, and the mystery of the man in the closet remains a tense one to the seriously creepy closing image. Lobo’s horror instincts are sound, and even though his knack for fleshing out details is lacking, his movie’s a pretty solid scare.

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I’ll Be You

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JT LeRoy

by Hope Madden

Do you remember the JT LeRoy hubbub? Maybe you confuse it with the similar hullaballoo surrounding James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, the memoir that turned out to be highly fictional?

Please don’t. LeRoy’s bizarre fake nonfiction and ensuing scandal is so much more interesting.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy is a hoax perpetrated on an almost grotesquely willing public. Laura Albert, a frustrated writer, master manipulator and likely sufferer of mental health issues, invented LeRoy.

More than the nom de plume used to pen Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, LeRoy became Albert’s literary persona. Albert herself didn’t exist in this world. She became LeRoy, the writer of lurid “autobiographical” pieces that, together with a mysterious nature, won the hearts of readers, media and celebrities alike.

In fact, Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy became so popular that he had no choice but to show his nonexistent face.

Enter Albert’s sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop.

The weird true-life tale of LeRoy’s fake-life tale has been documented twice in works of nonfiction (the documentaries The Cult of JT LeRoy and Author: The JT LeRoy Story, both worth viewing). Director Justin Kelly is the first to make fiction of the fiction with his aptly cast film, J.T. LeRoy.

Though the film doesn’t offer a great deal of insight beyond what you can glean from the two documentaries, it takes Knoop’s point of view for a refreshing change of pace. But its real strength is the film’s cast.

Kristen Stewart makes the ideal choice to play Savanna/JT. Effortlessly androgynous, moody, sensual and conflicted, Stewart gives the character a vulnerable center, balancing Knoop’s motivation between a sense of duty to Albert and a personal longing for artistic expression.

Naturally, Laura Dern shines, stealing scenes and oscillating between free spirit and opportunist. She does a fine job of illustrating Abbot’s view of creating this other personality who can take on her own pain, can amplify that pain and turn it into both an escape and art. At the same time, Dern’s the schemer, the survivor manipulating those around her. It’s interesting the way the veteran character actor weaves between artist and manipulator in a context that questions the difference between fiction and fraud.

The two leads become a great point/counter point and the film is strongest in their shared scenes. When JT wanders off alone, burdened by puppy love or struggling to keep up a persona of another’s creation, a certain spark goes out.

That’s not to say that the balance of the cast falters. Diane Kruger is particularly slippery as Eva, a thinly veiled version of Asia Argento. But as intriguing as her interplay is with JT, you miss the constant push and pull of wills when Stewart and Dern work off each other.

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All In

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Family

by Hope Madden

On occasion, film reps send us links to preview their film for review. Often, these links are password protected. Once, the password was bouncehouse.

Yes, please.

The film in question is called Family, writer Laura Steinel’s directorial debut, and it plays like a fun update of Uncle Buck with Juggalos.

That’s right!

We open on an uptight executive sprinting, face painted, through an Insane Clown Posse gathering and reflecting, “It’s kind of like a fun county fair where you could also, potentially, be stabbed.”

That reflective exec is Kate, and Kate is maybe Taylor Schilling’s best cinematic character. She takes to Steinel’s dialog with a flat affect that’s entirely, awkwardly enjoyable.

Kate is Uncle Buck, basically. Only she’s not. She’s a driven businessperson who actually got where she is because she has literally nothing else in her life to draw her attention or energy. And then she has to babysit her 11-year-old niece Maddie (Bryn Vale, spot on) and next thing you know—right, life lessons. We’re all familiar with the John Hughes handbook, but Steinel updates it with less schmaltz and more belief in nonconformity. And juggalos.

When Maddie says, “Magic is my passion,” I had to hit pause because I was afraid my snorting would drown out the next piece of comedy gold.

There are problems with Family (besides that inanely generic title). It is funny, and its comical scenes are delivered by an entirely winning cast (which includes the unreasonably hilarious Kate McKinnon and the unreasonably talented Brian Tyree Henry). That’s not the problem.

Steinel also inverts and subverts the tropes of the genre. There are two upended “makeover” scenes that are both funny and insightful. It’s also just a savvy look at being socially awkward.

No, the problem here is that the many colorful and fun scenes are strung together more than they are foundational to a whole. And the keen insight Steinel uses to sharpen individual jokes softens when the time comes to finish the story.

She John Hugheses it.

But a well-placed “sorry for your loss” is surprisingly funny and there are at least a dozen scenes here that I kind of love. Family is smart, R-rated comedy that ultimately caves to the pressure to conform, but its struggle to be itself is laudable.

Plus, those juggalos. They have hearts of gold.

PS, this is what all my sisters thought I would be like as a parent. And I wasn’t. Entirely.

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Sympathy for the Devil

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Stockholm

by Hope Madden

It’s amazing to think that a film has never been made of the heist that created the term “Stockholm Syndrome.”

Well, writer/director Robert Budreau has rectified this situation with his Ethan Hawke-led semi comedy, Stockholm.

Hawke, who starred in Budreau’s 2015 Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue, plays Lars Nystrom. A bewigged bandit, Nystrom concocts a 1973 bank heist with different goals than your traditional smash and grab.

By taking a couple of hostages, Lars hopes to win the freedom of his best friend, imprisoned bank robber Gunnar Sorensson (Mark Strong).

The always-welcome Strong creates a tender and level-headed counterpoint to Hawke’s endearing, idealistic dumbass. The lead wheel to the film’s cinematic tricycle comes from the quietly powerful work of Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

Playing Bianca Lind, one of Nystrom’s hostages, Rapace’s plaintive performance suggests a character who relies on observation and personal judgment. Never showy, Rapace becomes the gravitational force that tethers flighty characters and wild antics to a realistic foundation.

Budreau seems to be asking himself how it’s possible for captives to choose to side with their captors. Credit the filmmaker for avoiding the pitfall of casting the authorities as one-dimensional bullies or buffoons. Christopher Heyerdahl is particularly effective as Chief Mattsson, a good man who’s n a bit over his head.

Stockholm’s greatest strength, besides the understated playfulness of its cast, is the light touch Budreau brings to presenting the two sides of the standoff. And yet, in the end, he ensures that we the audience do, indeed, feel more compelled by the outlaws.

It’s a subtle act of manipulation perpetrated by Budreau, but not so terrible as to sink the film. The filmmaker’s real miss is in his superficial look at the environment within the vault that brought the captives and captors together.

Thanks to a fine cast that’s able to toe Budreau’s unusual line between comedy and drama, though, you’ll find yourself strangely fond of everyone involved.