Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

We All Scream

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Ice Cream Man

by Hope Madden

With Ice Cream Man, filmmaker Eli Roth visits the underappreciated horror subgenre focused on hordes of deadly children. Wolf Rilla may have done it first with 1960’s Village of the Damned, but Roth is following more closely in the footsteps of Narciso Ibañez Serrador and his 1976 film Who Can Kill a Child?

Since the Seventies, there’ve been plenty of killer-children flicks, most famously Children of the Corn from Stephen King’s novel. But Roth finds humor in the mayhem, channeling  2015’s Cooties in particular, but with a noticeable difference.

Generally, these films represent an adult nightmare. Our victim-heroes are grown-ups faced with the impossible task of defending themselves, and occasionally a handful of untainted children, from ravenous, murdering swarms of youngsters. It’s a tough spot to be in, hence Serrador’s title.

Roth changes that up. It’s little leaguer Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) and a couple of other kids who managed who find themselves face-to-face with the Ice Cream Man’s minions. His wares change children into frenzied killing machines. Only those lactose intolerant enough not to digest the tainted snack treats remain healthy.

Roth delights in the childish carnage. Early kills are especially nasty, all of it laced with a macabre humor and ghoulish playfulness. A similar tone is one of the reasons his 2023 film Thanksgiving was such an enjoyable return to genre work.

But Ice Cream Man never hits the spot quite as well as Thanksgiving. By removing the adult victim-hero, Roth creates a children-in-peril horror that doesn’t pull on the emotions of similar fare, like It or Devil’s Backbone, because children are also the villains.

The switch also eliminates the vicarious fear and revulsion adults often harbor, sometimes deep down, for children. Cooties read like every middle school teacher’s secret fantasy. It’s also funnier and better paced without foregoing any of the blood or nastiness.

Roth can’t manage to keep the pace moving, often pausing the action when it makes the least sense. The plot, what little there is, feels like a convenient, even cliché afterthought.

Which is not to say that Ice Cream Man is all bad. For bloodthirsty horror fans, it gets nasty. There are also a handful of randomly funny moments, and others that are just offensive. More offensive are the dips into gen AI, which is particularly weak and plain ugly during the backstory. The film’s less irreverent than it thinks it is, though, and that’s its biggest weakness.

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Carnal College

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I Want Your Sex

by George Wolf

Even when a Gregg Araki film does not work for me at all (hello, Kaboom), I’m interested in his next move. Whatever he’s up to, you can make a safe bet it will be audacious, horny and pretty damn fearless.

I Want Your Sex is all that and a bag of charming.

Cooper Hoffman is a damn delight as Elliot, an affable, mop-headed goofball who’s thrilled to get a job working for Neo-pop artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, fantastically self-absorbed smoke show). Erika deals in frank sexuality, and waits a full week before giving her new assistant a no-nonsense, carnal proposition.

What’s Elliot to do? Yes, the studious Minerva (Charli XCX) is his girlfriend, but to her sex is an uninteresting chore, so….it’s DTF time!

Erika gets a new sexual muse, and Elliot gets to broaden his, ahem, horizons in various kinky ways. Though co-workers Vikktor and Zap (Daveed Diggs and Mason Gooding, respectively letter perfect) consistently roll their eyes at Elliot’s naïveté, he’s pretty okay with Erika’s benefits package.

That is, until there’s blood, a body, and two detectives (Margaret Cho, Johnny Knoxville) wanting answers.

Araki, who also co-writes with Karley Sciortino, crafts much of the film as a mystery told via shifting timelines. But each step in the Elliot/Erika relationship is so engaging you forget there are two cops ready to pop in with more questions. They can wait a hot minute, because Araki and company are having too much fun with this neon-colored tapestry of sexual mores, hipster sweat shops, Harold Robbins novels and penis rugs, all wrapped around frisky exclamations and hilariously droll asides.

Hoffman and Wilde are a down and dirty joy together, and their natural, committed chemistry gives the film a sweet, dare I say even sentimental layer I wasn’t expecting.

I was expecting the sexcapades, and all the usual Araki flourishes. But even while pushing all of these fetish boundaries, I Want Your Sex may be his most accessible film. And most thoroughly enjoyable.

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Good Sized Potatoes

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day

by George Wolf

Looks like our boy has gone and grown up. It happens.

When Tom Holland stepped into the Spider-Man suit nearly a decade ago now (!), he was 21 but looked 15, which was perfect. Peter Parker was a kid again, and that fact alone grounded the new franchise with a freshness and naïveté that was utterly charming.

It also gave the young man and his super alter ego plenty of room to grow. Spider-Man: Brand New Day raises the stakes with both familiarity and surprise, delivering a more adult-themed adventure that will thrill , satisfy and occasionally frustrate.

Peter has settled into his life as a friendly neighborhood hero, helping Detective DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas) bust bad guys even as she advises him to take some time off and quit being married to his job as a super friend. But, of course, the work takes his mind off of the fact that girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon) don’t even know him anymore.

And much like plenty of Superheroes before him, Peter begins to show sides of himself that even he doesn’t recognize. Severe headaches grow more frequent, and parts of his high-tech spider suit begin to malfunction as a very dangerous, and very elusive new villain emerges. And just when Peter needs to know who he can trust, everyone from Frank Castle/Punisher (Jon Bernthal) to Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to a couple other recognizable names I won’t mention may have conflicting loyalties.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Short Term 12, Just Mercy) takes the franchise helm from Jon Watts, providing a winning pace and engaging visual style. After some well-placed nods to the youthful Spider-Verse aesthetic early on, Cretton buoys the maturation of the character with a more streamlined, focused approached to some really terrific action sequences. And while plenty of the CGI is appropriately super, Hulk’s facial features seem to have taken a curious step back.

Franchise screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers return, giving credible weight to the introduction of themes that should be plenty familiar to superhero fans. Yes, some of the dialog banter lands as a bit forced and the humor is understandably downplayed this time out, but a few good moments of laughter find their mark – including a turn of the phrase “meager potatoes” which I now plan to work into daily conversation.

Holland still provides the heroic anchor, and he’s just so good with this character it appears effortless. His chemistry with Zendaya (duh) and Batalon is warm and real, and he makes Peter’s journey to becoming his own hero an organic and rewarding one. He’s still friendly, but now there’s a sense of loss and inner turmoil that makes the victories more sweet and well-earned. With Brand New Day, calling him Spider-Man doesn’t feel like a kid playing dress up anymore.

And those are good-sized potatoes.

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Shut Up and Plot Your Revenge

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Motor City

by George Wolf

Man, if you can hang with Motor City for about an hour and fifteen minutes, you’ll get one damn fine action sequence. Suddenly violent, increasingly bloody and eventually downright grisly, it’s an impressively choreographed and well shot set piece.

It’s also curious, considering the film surrounding it is a pretty tedious exercise in navigating a needless hurdle of its own making. And needle-dropping some sweet 70s hits.

The theme is simple enough: revenge. Ex-con John Miller (Alan Ritchson) is on probation and trying to toe the line in 1977 Detroit. He pops the question to his honey Sophia (Shailene Woodley) and things are looking up. But then Sophia’s gangster ex-boyfriend Reynolds (Ben Foster) frames John with a staged drug bust, and back to the slammer he goes.

So how does director Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) refresh the familiar idea from writer Chad St. John? By crafting Motor City as a nearly dialog-free thriller propelled by mood and music.

That “nearly” is the first curious bump in John’s long road to payback.

The few bits of dialog that are here just end up drawing attention to how hard the film is trying to get credit for telling most of this story without words. And it just isn’t necessary. Scenes that should naturally have organic conversation do not, and the strain of keeping the silent device intact is just too obvious.

I mean, do it or don’t. Since there is some dialog, Ponciroli’s commitment to visual storytelling ends up feeling more gimmicky and forced.

Foster and Woodley are customarily fine, Ritchson continues to show raw talent and real charisma, and Pablo Schreiber makes a perfectly menacing henchman. The soundtrack choices from Jack White (who also has a cameo) are on point, too, which helps keep the boredom at bay when the story just takes too long getting down to business.

And though revealing just what derails the finale would be too much of a spoiler, the result is anticlimactic and just plain silly.

But man, that one elevator scene shows just how much action potential is wasted in Motor City.

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Songbird Out Of Hell

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Hadestown: The Musical

by George Wolf

For the next week at least, Greece is most definitely the word at your local theatre.

While Christopher Nolan’s take on The Odyssey is wowing critics, audiences and box offices, the movie version of Broadway smash Hadestown combines the Greek tragedies of Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone with an irresistible, jazz-infused treatment that dazzles from the opening glimpses backstage.

Screening in theaters for five nights only beginning July 24th, Hadestown unveils the “pro-shot” film capture of a reunion performance from last year in London. The five leads reprised their roles in the multi award-winning production, with veteran filmed stage feature director Brett Sullivan bringing new life to stage director Rachel Chavkin’s original vision.

Tony Award-winner Andre De Shields is a mesmerizing tour guide as Mr. Hermes, our host who explains “the road to hell is a railroad line,” as Anaïs Mitchell’s Tony and Grammy Award-winning score begins working it’s toe-tapping magic.

Young lovers Orpheus (Reeve Carney) and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada) face an uncertain future due to their life of poverty. When King Hades (Patrick Page and his delicious baritone) arrives to bring his wife Persephone (Amber Gray) back to the Underworld and usher in a harsh winter, Eurydice is intrigued by his offer to end her hunger and suffering. Urged on by the Fates, Eurydice signs Hades’s book and leaves Orpheus for a new life down below.

But Orpheus will not give up his quest to bring Eurydice home, and his commitment inspires Persephone to plead his case to her husband, leading to the legendary offer Hades extends to the couple for a final chance at their freedom.

Mitchell updates the classic myths with a timely parallel to our current chasm between the privileged and the struggling, and Sullivan bolsters that theme with a wonderfully active showcase for Rachel Hauck’s Tony Award-winning set design. Anchored by a rotating center stage with one circle descending to the Underworld, the set extends the movement outward to the dancing Fates, the terrific jazz musicians upstage and the frequently pacing Mr. Hermes.

Sullivan mines that sweet balance between framing the totality of the audience view with the more intimate moments a camera allows. Overplaying this hand would betray the innate beauty of a pro shot experience, but here the pushes only accentuate the emotion of the performances, the detail of the production design and the richness of the costuming (bonus points for turning Page’s cane and walking boot from an Achilles injury into a menacingly cool addition to the Hades swagger).

And much like its mythological sister The Odyssey, Hadestown‘s extended length (2h 21m) only gives you more time to relish the experience. The brief screening window (remember, only five nights beginning this Friday) however, does not.

So don’t miss your chance to bask in the joy and pain, tragedy and hope that Hadestown finally brings to the big screen. And get ready to put those jazz hands together, early and often.

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Trip of a Lifetime

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The Odyssey

by Hope Madden & George Wolf

Christopher Nolan likes a big room.

A massive cast, incredible set designs, far flung locations, 70mm IMAX cameras, The Odyssey has it all. And why not? Homer’s story is among history’s first ever epics.

And it’s quite a tale, trailing Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he struggles to return home to Ithaca after his savvy strategy leading to the defeat of Troy. Nolan, who adapts the 2700-year-old tome, finds echoes of Oppenheimer in Odysseus’s struggle. It’s a haunting narrative choice that gives the ancient proceedings a relevance that transcends time.

Damon is magnificent, wily and honorable, humble and arrogant, and Nolan surrounds him with a jaw-dropping ensemble. Anne Hathaway is bracingly wonderful as Penelope, the wife pushing off suitors circling the throne Odysseus left empty nearly two decades ago. Tom Holland, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Corey Hawkins, and Robert Pattinson join Penelope in the castle, and while the entire cast is solid, Pattinson again carves out unforgettable screentime.

Out in the wild world, Charlize Theron offers a beautiful dash of melancholy as Calypso, who prods Odysseus to search his memories and tell the tale. Himesh Patel is also exceptional as Eurylochus, Odysseus’s second in command. Elliot Page delivers a heartbreaking turn as Sinon, a youngster who follows Odysseus into battle, Jon Bernthal crafts a perfectly hardened King of Sparta while Samantha Morton finds remarkable depths as the witch Circe, given her limited time on screen. With even less screentime, Lupita Nyong’o and Zendaya leave an emotional mark.

And that’s not even the full cast, each of them bringing vulnerability to scenes of remarkable staging. The Trojan horse, the ship at sea, scenes of war, of mutiny,  scenes confined to a banquet hall or strewn across the black embers of hell—this is Nolan at not just his most imaginative, but his most insightful as he finds relatable humanity inside even the grandest of moments.

He also mines new relevance from this ancient text, increasing the narrative weight with each spectacular step on the journey. Set in “a time of apparent magic,” Nolan doesn’t let us forget that the sacred bonds between people are still very fragile indeed, and breaking them can still have haunting, tragic repercussions.

The Odyssey casts such a mesmerizing spell that its three-hour runtime seems inconsequential, and the occasional lapses into more contemporary types of dialog and phrasing are rendered mere curiosities. Even those who may not be quite scholarly in Greek mythology will find a rich, rewarding story to get lost in, one that is anchored in storytelling itself as a reminder of what power the ancient art can hold.

Expect witchcraft and monsters (maybe a horror film next, Mr. Nolan?), war, brutality, political skullduggery, love and longing, revenge and regret, sacrifice, cowardice, honor and visual wonder.

The magic here is more than apparent, so don’t cheat yourself by waiting for the streaming date. The Odyssey is a true cinema experience, and a reason to seek out IMAX, 70mm, the whole fantastic shebang. This trip of a lifetime deserves nothing less.

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Come Get Some

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Evil Dead Burn

by Hope Madden

Nasty. Relentless. Grim.

Evil Dead Burn saw me coming!

Say what you will about the Deadite franchise, but you’re not likely to use the adjective “boring.” One of the reasons it’s remained relevant over six films and a 3-season TV show is that the team behind the bloodshed is not afraid to switch things up. Sam Raimi’s original, Stooges-inspired trilogy and the Bruce Campbell starring TV series were more grossout comedies than anything.

But the films took on a darker tone with Fede Alvarez’s 2013 reboot, a style that continued with Lee Cronin’s 2023 episode, Evil Dead Rise. For their latest installment, Executive Producer Raimi tapped French filmmaker Sébastian Vanicek.

Vanicek’s 2023 arachnid horror Infested was an impressive exercise in claustrophobic terror. He brings with him the flavor of French Extreme Cinema, so vital and gruesome in the early 2000s. What he abandons is the underlying, though ever darkening, humor that has always marked the franchise.

That or it just doesn’t work this time.

In what is essentially a metaphor for abusive relationships, Evil Dead Burn follows one family in the wake of their eldest son’s ghastly vehicular death. Naturally, the family gathers to mourn in their dead grandpa’s old farmhouse. He used to travel the world collecting creepy stories, kept a journal scribbled with incantations. You know the drill. It stars with “kanda” and ends with serious carnage.

Vanicek writes the script with Raimi and Florent Bernard, who co-wrote Infested. The story is tight enough, and solid performances quickly carve out recognizable characters who still manage not to feel flat or cliché.

Souheila Yacoub is Alice, the deceased’s widow and our central figure. Her tortured past sometimes threatens to weigh down the mayhem, but it never drags anything to a stop. How could it? Vanicek opens hard and never slows down.

The action choreography is fascinating. Cinematographer Philip Lozano (MadS, Cobweb) takes inspiration from the Raimi classic, his camera snaking and stalking its way through scenes. But this camera rolls, dips, and flies, all of it in service of the slaughter.

The film’s humorlessness and its somewhat tortured (ha!) central metaphor keep it from feeling truly at home in the franchise. But for an hour and fifty minutes of unforgiving butchery, you could do worse.

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Mighty, Mighty Neighborly

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The Invite

by George Wolf

For a film set almost entirely inside one apartment, The Invite covers an awful lot of ground. It’s a trip through performative banter and anxious glances to repressed feelings, emotional honesty and possible new beginnings.

And it’s funny, in ways that are often relatable, revealing, and a good bit awkward.

Adapted from Cesc Gay’s The People Upstairs (stage play, then movie), the film finds Angela (Olivia Wilde, who also directs) and Joe (Seth Rogen) finally ready host their upstairs neighbors Pina (Penélope Cruz) and “Hawk” (Edward Norton) for dinner.

Well, Angela is ready, and schoolgirl nervous. Joe insists she didn’t tell him it was tonight, so he didn’t get any wine, and you know what if they come over he just might ask them to please tone down all those wild sex noises.

No! Joe can’t do that. Pina is so pretty, and Hawk is so cool! Angela just has to impress them and at least pretend that she and Joe are as happy as they are. Or at least as they seem to be.

It’s all polite laughter and rug compliments at first, but slowly the adapted script from Will McCormack and Rashida Jones begins probing old wounds, petty grievances and provocative possibilities. The cast wrings emotion from the dialog with the zest you would expect from a veteran foursome such as this. Cruz and Norton are effortlessly suave and sexy, while Rogen is the grumpy fly buzzing around the cheese tray and Wilde is the frazzled host desperate for the night to play out as she planned it.

It won’t. And everyone is better for it.

Wilde’s direction seems equally intent on bringing movement to this static setting, and for the most part she succeeds without showy desperation. Windows, doorframes and mirrors are carefully utilized in several shots, giving a visual boost to the emotional distance – or growing attraction – between characters.

It all works in wonderful unison for this wonderfully adult comedy/drama…okay I’ll say “dramedy.” Funny, biting, poignant, and surprising, The Invite speaks to how easily longtime couples can drift apart, and the hard fought honesty it takes to stick things out.

Plus, some people really like rugs.

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On the Boat Again

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Moana

by Hope Madden

Has there been a reason yet for one of Disney’s live-action remakes? Arguably, no, but some of them have been fun. Jon Favreau’s 2016 The Jungle Book used inspired casting and fun tweaks on the Disney’s 1967 animated classic to craft easily the best of the bunch.

Since then? They range from garbage (Robert Zemeckis’s 2022 abomination Pinocchio) to fine (Bill Condon’s 2017 Beauty and the Beast). Disney’s latest, Moana, falls somewhere in between.

Director Thomas Kail (Hamilton) guides the effort that sees Dwayne Johnson adding flesh to his voice role as demigod shapeshifter Maui. Catherine Laga’aia is Moana, the future leader of her Polynesian village in a long ancient time when islands were still being pulled from the ocean floor by gods.

Moana’s father warns her never to go beyond the reef, but if we know anything about young Disney heroes, we know Moana is destined to roam. Her quest: to find Moana, get him on her boat, cross the ocean, and return the heart of the sea to the goddess he stole it from a thousand years ago.

Laga’aia is in fine voice, and the story is as charming as ever. But even more than most of these remakes, Moana begs the question: why? Favreau used motion capture to bring actor and jungle character together, allowing for an experience the animated original couldn’t offer. The animals didn’t look or move like cartoons. They seemed like panthers and tigers, snakes and orangutans imbued with weirdly human personalities.

But a giant, bedazzled crab (still voiced gloriously by Jemaine Clement) just looks like a big, animated crustacean covered in glitter. Tiny coconut pirates, huge fire gods—every unusual creature Moana and Maui encounter still looks cartoon-like. If not cartoon, why cartoon shaped?

The fact that Kail works from Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller, and Ron Clements’s original screenplay, varying barely an iota, doesn’t help. It’s not that Moana is bad. Were it a standalone, it would be a lovely family film. And in a way, that’s still what it is. It just isn’t necessary.

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There’s Gold in Them There Hills

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The Isolate Thief

by Brandon Thomas

To the casual viewer, the classic Western has its tried and true tropes: the dusty landscape, the haggard hero, and maybe the damsel in distress. However, those days are mostly long gone, and the few Westerns that find their way to the screen tend to offer up something a little more left of center. While not fully embracing the neo-Western moniker, The Isolate Thief still delivers a film a little bit more unique than its classical brethren.

Young Ada (MacKenzie Foy, The Conjuring) is the sole occupant of a remote outpost during the Civil War. After stumbling upon a cache of stolen gold, Ada finds herself up against a violent crew of outlaws led by the cunning Fiddler (Sean Bean, National Treasure). As the gang’s patience wears thin, Ada struggles to navigate their growing frustration as well as keep the gold secret. 

The Isolate Thief has the traditional Western shootouts, but the real excitement comes from the tension director John Suits creates. More akin to a thriller at times, Thief uses the threat of violence to greater effect than violence itself. Still, when all hell breaks loose, Suits doesn’t shy away from the carnage inflicted by gunshots, stabbings, and beatings. This approach is especially effective given the film’s chamber piece approach – essentially taking place only at the outpost and the woods directly surrounding it. 

The aforementioned violence is often directed at Ada and the lone female member of the outlaws, Emily (Odeya Rush, Lady Bird), who isn’t there by choice. There’s an interesting – and purposeful – juxtaposition between these two women. Ada is the younger, more naive of the two, and the one willing to try and outwit these vicious men. Emily’s world-weariness straddles the line between cynical and pragmatic – often within the same scene and conversation. Her tragic backstory comes to light, but the true horror of her ordeal is seen only in the character’s eyes.

Bean is at his most sinister as the revolting Fiddler. Most will think of Bean as the redemptive Boromir from The Lord of the Rings or the gone-too-soon Ned Stark on Game of Thrones. Those of us who have been around long enough can remember when Bean cut his teeth on villain roles in Patriot Games and as a foil for 007 in Goldeneye. As Fiddler, Bean injects his natural charm into a character whose only love language is violence. We know what Fiddler is capable of long before Ada does, and it only ratchets up the tension as the film moves towards its brutal climax. 

The Isolate Thief is a thrilling and well-acted entry in the Western genre. While maybe not the next Hateful Eight, it will still satisfy most die-hard fans of this kind of rootin’, shootin’ film.