Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Gimme an A! A! R! P!

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Poms

by Christie Robb

At a time when movies are pushing three hours, it feels weird to want one to run longer, but at just over an hour and a half, Poms feels way too short. It’s like a long SNL sketch.

A female-centric comedy about a retired teacher aching for one last shot at her childhood dream of becoming a cheerleader seems like a good option for Mother’s Day weekend—especially for the Boomers and their kids. The cast looks solid: Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, and Rhea Perlman. Poms coming “from the studio that brought you Bad Moms” appears promising.

But it’s all just perfunctory.

Director Zara Hayes and writer Shane Atkinson, both TV veterans making feature debuts, introduce characters via montage and then give them little to do or say.

People become strange antagonists, set on denying the senior cheerleading squad practice/performance time for no discernible reason. Folks burst into tears or have 180 degree shifts in perspective simply because the plot demands it.

Still, Keaton’s performance of a woman striving to live in the moment while hiding terminal cancer is effective. The chemistry between Keaton’s snarky Martha and Jacki Weaver’s bubbly Sheryl is cute. And when they are performing, the women look like they are having a nice time.

You just wish that there was more of a story there, more character development, more cheerleading even. The cast is way too good for this.

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Forming the Fellowship

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Tolkien

by George Wolf

Better confess right now: the whole Hobbit, Lord of the Rings thing just isn’t my bag. God bless you if you love the books, films and all, but the whole story just leaves me cold.

That’s not to say I can’t respect and admire the incredible imagination of author J.R.R. Tolkien, or the biopic about him that’s full of so much respect and admiration.

But what’s strangely missing in Tolkien is the wonder, the spark of endless creativity so abundant in the author’s expansive literary landscapes.

Writers Stephen Beresford and David Gleeson anchor Tolkien’s pre-Hobbit life in the trenches of WW1. As Officer Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) searches the battlefield for a boyhood friend, flashbacks fill us in on his upbringing as an orphan adopted into wealth.


With an eye on “changing the world through the power of art,” Tolkien forms a “Dead Poets” – type secret society with his mates at Oxford, where he impresses esteemed language professor Joseph Wright (Derek Jacobi in a wonderful cameo) as well as the lovely Edith Bratt (Lily Collins).

Both Hoult and Collins are committed and pleasing, but the courtship becomes just another informative but less-than-engrossing leg the film stands on.


Though director Dome Karukoski keeps things well-assembled and plenty reverent toward his subject, this film never quite conveys the spirit of inspiration it seeks to celebrate. With a frustrating lean toward safety over enlightenment, Tolkien turns an ambitious quest into a rather pedestrian journey.

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Charlie’s Angels

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Charlie Says

by Hope Madden

It’s been 50 years since Charles Manson and his family effectively terminated the 1960s. Filmmaker Mary Harron (American Psycho) joins Daniel Farrands and Quentin Tarantino in commemorating the anniversary.

Earlier this year, Farrands unleashed the grim and quickly forgotten The Haunting of Sharon Tate, while Tarantino’s next likely cultural phenomenon, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,  promises to shine some of its spotlight on the Manson family crimes as well.

Harron’s film, Charlie Says, follows Leslie Van Houton (Hannah Murray), Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendon) and Patricia Krenwinkle (Sosie Bacon), three years after their incarceration, as they reflect on Manson’s promises and their own actions.

The aptly titled film is as concerned with the women’s brainwashing as it is the crimes themselves, although it unfortunately provides no real insight into either.

Harron spends about half the film in the California Women’s Correctional Facility, where the trio is taught by dedicated grad student Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever, portraying the author of the book that inspires the film).

The eerie chorus of “Charlie says…” greets nearly every question Wever lobs at her students, which generally spurs a flashback to time on the ranch with Charlie (Matt Smith).

Here we hit a snag, because Smith lacks the charisma, the hatred, the ugliness or the psychotic aura to pull of Manson. He is never terrifying, never seductive—never convincing.

In fact, most of the flock lacks the weather beaten conviction we recognize from police tapes. The period detail and tone lack degrees of authenticity as well.

Harron’s film opens strong, but it quickly loses its footing and never really finds it again. Working from Guinevere Turner’s screenplay, Harron brings up some interesting themes—particularly questioning the point of breaking through to these women, knowing that puncturing their fantasies only means their clear-eyed horror whether looking backward or forward.

But she doesn’t really land any punches. The film never feels particularly queasying, especially enlightening or even very memorable.

I guess we still have Tarantino. Or maybe it’s just time we all moved on and stopped obsessing over what Charlie had to say.

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Wild Thing

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Wild Nights with Emily

by Hope Madden

Here’s a fun trend in recent indie filmmaking: let’s revisit our historic “spinsters”, shall we?

Craig William Macneill gave Lizzie Borden the treatment last year with Lizzie, offering a pretty speculative and yet decidedly clear-eyed plausibility. But Madeleine Olneck has actual history to back her up.

Plumbing Harvard University Press’s stash of Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters, Olneck suggests a different, funnier, slyer image of the “recluse poet.”

Wild Nights with Emily plays almost like an episode of Drunk History, although no one seems to be drunk. Olneck simulcasts two parallel retellings of the life of America’s most beloved female poet, and among its most beloved poets, regardless of sex.

Wild Nights does not disregard sex, though.

One storyline—the one you’ll recognize—is dictated by Mabel Todd (a delightful Amy Seimetz in a rare comedic performance). As she stands in her cotton candy pink dress and hat, she regales a rapt audience with stories of the Emily Dickinson she knew.

Well, “knew” seems to be a strong word.

Todd was, indeed, the first to publish Dickinson’s work aside from a stray newspaper editor here and there. And why was that? Because Dickinson was a recluse who shunned publication, as Todd defined it and history was so quick to embrace it?

Or because Dickinson’s rule-defying work was ignored by the literary establishment of her time and because she shunned Todd?

The offsetting narrative explores a different view of Dickinson, warmly and beautifully portrayed by Molly Shannon. Her relationship with lifelong friend, expert reader, fierce proponent and sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert (Susan Ziegler), fuels a poignant and funny story.

Is a likelier reading of Dickinson’s work and letters that of a passionate, lifelong love affair with Gilbert? Olneck’s consistently entertaining narrative certainly believes so.

This is a specifically political film, one that begs with outrage that we reexamine the stories we’ve been told about women in history—this one woman, in particular.

It’s also a mash note to the breathtaking originality and talent of the poet, whose words flow through the film without burdening it by self-importance or pretentiousness. No, Olneck’s audacious wit and Ziegler and Shannon’s performances—alongside spot on comic turns from Seimetz, Brett Gelman, Jackie Monahan and Kevin Seal—guarantee the film never bends toward anything remotely stuffy.

Instead, Wild Nights with Emily offers a refreshing and awfully entertaining new way of seeing an American treasure.

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God Bless America

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Hail Satan?

by Hope Madden

Who’s up for a Satanic Temple recruitment video?

If you’re thinking Christopher Lee and blood-drinking, virgin-sacrificing minions planning to summon demons forth and end humankind, well, you’re not alone. But you are off the mark.

And while I’m not sure documentarian Penny Lane intended recruitment with her film Hail Satan?, it’s really hard not to find yourself rooting for this scrappy group of idealists.

Lane and her subjects trace a brief history of Satanic grotesquerie in America. From Anton Lavey’s psychedelic Church of Satan (“a rat pack carnival”) to the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s and 90s through the abominable behavior inside the Catholic Church, the film notes how the devil has been used in American popular culture.

But for TST, “Satanism” is simply a way to rework a pejorative term used historically to mark the outsider—a group to which members certainly relate.

Lucien Greaves (a pseudonym) devoted himself to establishing The Satanic Temple as a simple societal outgrowth, a tumor, if you will, on the ass of a state of Christian theocracy he saw in our country. He doesn’t worship Satan. He doesn’t even believe in Satan.

Greaves believes in the religious pluralism promised by the US Constitution, and what better way to convince a state house to remove its ten commandments statue than to insist on the erection of an 8 foot statue of Baphomet on the same lawn? Because, as far as the laws of the US are concerned, if you can’t have one, you can’t have the other.

Lane documents the organization’s growth from theatrical political activist cell to global network of connected communities. Her wry delivery matches the sensibilities of the Satanists in question, but their outrage and their unexpected sense of community fuel the film.

As Lane’s investigation uncovers, The Satanic Temple’s surprising surge in popularity owes itself not just to a citizenry troubled by a sudden swing toward theocracy. It’s also due to the organization’s ability to represents a unified voice for outcasts.

Those very people most vilified by a conservative “Christian” point of view find acceptance here. And  while there may be no better way for them to stick it to their oppressors, this is also their opportunity to make a difference.

If the point of a documentary is to enlighten while it entertains, few docs have succeeded on both fronts as entirely as Hail Satan? In turns frustrating, funny and provocative, it is always a clear-eyed image of America as defined by our citizen’s imperative to challenge our government to better realize the ideals of our Constitution.

New In Theaters, Uncategorized

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.