Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Singing in the Rain

Leave a comment

You’ll Never Find Me

by Hope Madden

A somber experiment in atmospheric horror, Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell’s feature You’ll Never Find Me waits out a storm with a couple of curious characters.

Patrick (Brendan Rock) sits quietly if unhappily in the kitchen of his trailer. It’s late—after 2 in the morning—and he seems a tad morose. When a persistent knock on his door punctures the noise of the storm, he ignores it as long as he can.

Eventually, he admits a stranger (Jordan Cowan), barefoot, drenched and shivering. She was caught in the storm and just needs a ride to town.

At this time of night?

What’s really going on here?

The film feels lost in a dream—the lighting, the silences, the pair’s lonesome and broken expressions. The co-directors linger on the actors’ faces, allowing the paranoia to shift so you’re never fully sure of either character.

Everybody in You’ll Never Find Me moves slowly. Everything moves slowly. You don’t know who to trust because neither of these two seems to trust the other, and you can’t judge either of them for it. Surely, they’re not both up to something nefarious.

Maxx Corkindale’s sometimes roving camera reveals something creepy in the trailer’s tidy, tightly enclosed ordinariness. The sound design is hushed and foreboding, blending with Darren Lim’s score to work the nerves. The result allows the film to suggest something supernatural, although all other signs point to very human crimes.

A slow boil like this requires committed, compelling performances and both Cowan and Rock deliver. Eventually the gender politics on display unnerve, and what’s what the film is more than truly scary. It’s unnerving.

The third act doesn’t entirely deliver on the promise made earlier in the film, but Bell and Allen have crafted an unsettling and spooky feast for the senses.

New In Theaters

Fierce Love

Leave a comment

Coming to You

by Christie Robb

Writer/director Gyuri Byun’s Coming to You is a monument to the love and support families can provide for their children even if it takes the older generation a minute to get there.

The Korean documentary follows Hankyeol, a person who is gender-fluid, but pursuing a legal identification change from female to male. This requires the partnership of his mom, Nabi. (In Korea, up until 2019, this process required filling out 18 different legal documents—including parental approval regardless of the child’s age. So, even if you’re an adult in your 30s.)

Sharing the spotlight is Yejoon, a gay man, and his mom, Vivian. Initially, Vivian thought Yejoon would be better off living abroad for the rest of his life rather than living in a homeland that lacks same-sex marriage rights.

Right now Korea isn’t a super-friendly space for the LGBTQ+ community. But PFLAG (an international organization dedicated to support, education, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones) and other groups are working to change that.

Coming to You, a documentary years in the making, illustrates the challenges and struggles of parents in a conservative society when they find out their kid doesn’t fit society’s expectations for who they are and/or how they behave. A society that can be hostile and violent. Homophobic. Transphobic. A society where suicide is the leading cause of death of people aged 10-39 (BBC).

But, it’s not all struggle. There’s hope and joy here, too—changes in the legal system, evolving attitudes after challenging conversations, fierce love and devotion. Support. Allyship. Love.

Centered on the mothers’ journeys to acceptance, the film could have benefitted from a deeper exploration of the children’s experiences. A few more interviews with them would have really strengthened the project.

But the moms are raw and honest, flawed but trying. And the extent they are willing to listen, love, and change to support their kids is just beautiful.

New In Theaters

Juiced Up and Sloppy

Leave a comment

Love Lies Bleeding

by Hope Madden

Awash in the stink and the glory of new passion, Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding treads some familiar roadways but leaves an impression solely its own.

Lou (Kristen Stewart) and her mullet work a shitty job in a low rent gym in a nowhere town, looking with disdain toward essentially everyone. Until Jackie (Katy O’Brian) blows into town from wherever and Lou can’t take her eyes off her.

But every stranger has a backstory, and that’s the rub of romance movies, isn’t it? Everybody’s fresh and clean. Not Lou and not Jackie, but for now, it’s all good. Jackie wants to go to Vegas and compete in body building finals. Lou wants Jackie.

Glass blends and smears cinematic gender identifiers, particularly those of noir and thriller, concocting an intoxicating new image of sexual awakening and empowerment. She routinely upends images of power and masculinity, subverting expectations and associations and fetishizing the human body anew.

For Lou and Jackie, love is a wild and dangerous drug, heady and unpredictable. The same sentence describes Glass’s film. She likes to make you uncomfortable, and as soon as you acclimate to one type of confrontation, she’s on to the next. But her style has energy to burn, and her leads are just as explosive.

The supporting cast—Jena Malone (obviously destined to play Stewart’s sister at some point), Dave Franco (with an even more impressive mullet), and the great Ed Harris—command attention with dimensional, damaged and damaging performances.

Glass is not out to break new ground, plot wise. The story is rock solid but delivers essentially a smartly crafted hillbilly noir thriller—a la Red Rock West, Blood Simple, Killer Joe— but with few truly surprising plot turns. The execution, however, is something you’ve never witnessed.

Anyone who’s seen Glass’s magnificent 2021 horror Saint Maud may be better prepared for the third act than newcomers to the filmmaker’s vision, but it’s a wild and unexpected turn regardless.  It’s quite something—bold, original, and wryly funny in the most unexpected moments. There’s heartbreak and horror, sex and revenge, a little magic and a lot of steroids. Glass’s juice has the goods.

New In Theaters

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Leave a comment

The Animal Kingdom

by Brandon Thomas

The relationship between Francois (Roman Duris) and his son Emile (Paul Kircher) isn’t just strained, it’s virtually broken. A mutation has swept the planet causing some people to transform into human-animal hybrids and Emile’s mother sits in a hospital as one of those affected. As Francois obsesses over treatment for his wife, he fails to notice the significant transformations occurring in his own son.

The Animal Kingdom surprises from the start with a focus squarely on the characters and their relationships, not the genre elements. What easily could have been typical genre fodder (and there’s nothing wrong with that from time to time) instead grapples with complex emotions and real-world metaphors. While the elements surrounding the mutations are visually impressive and interesting, Francois and Emile’s relationship anchors the film.

Speaking of the visuals, the make-up and added CG effects on the mutated are outstanding. The emphasis is placed more on the practical work, but the almost seamless blending of the two styles makes for an incredible final product. Not only do the character designs have an intriguing originality to them, but they also allow the characters’ humanity to bleed through. It’s an approach to visual effects that is unfortunately not the norm for these types of films. 

The Animal Kingdom’s commentary on real-world events is presented front and center, but not in an overly heavy-handed way.

Writer/Director Thomas Cailley and co-writer Pauline Munier have crafted a story that works on an emotional and visceral level, but also as a broader comment on newer diseases and the fear that it brings to the surface. It never feels like Cailley is preaching to the audience even when the film’s point is hard to miss. 

Audiences looking for more emotional genre fare will be quite pleased with The Animal Kingdom and its emphasis on character.

New In Theaters

Tin Roof, Rusted

Leave a comment

Snack Shack

by George Wolf

Four years ago, Adam Rehmeier’s Dinner In America arrived as a delightfully subversive 90s punk rock rom-com. Snack Shack finds the writer/director still navigating the 90s with hilarious R-rated delight, even as the punk rock ‘tude has been usurped by capitalistic dreams.

It’s 1991 in small town Nebraska, and teen best friends A.J. (Conor Sherry) and Moose (The Fablemans‘ Gabriel LaBelle) are coming hot into summer with some big plans. They score at the dog track, market their own homemade beer and are working more than enough angles to please the Gordon Gekko poster hanging on the wall.

But then an unexpected new hustle presents itself. The boys’ older friend Shane (Nick Robinson) – who’s a bit of a local hero thanks to his service in Kuwait – is home to manage the local pool, and he gives the foul-mouthed young Gekkos a tip on how to win the city council’s summer contract for the poolside snack bar.

Before long, business is booming, and that 75-cent upcharge for using ketchup to write “fuck” on a hotdog (a “fuckdog!”)is paying off big time. Will success go to their heads? Will A.J. earn enough cash for his Alaskan trek with Shane, AND earn the respect of his parents (David Costabile and Gillian Vigman, both priceless)?

And what about Brooke, the hot new lifeguard (Mika Abdalla)? Could she actually come between these hometown homies?

You’ll know where some of this is going, but Rehmeier’s script delivers foul, horny hilarity, and outstanding turns by both Sherry and LaBelle stand out in a letter perfect ensemble. The time stamp is again spot on, with Rehmeier’s freewheeling style crafting an infectious mashup of The Way Way Back, Superbad and Project X.

And most importantly, Rehmeier captures that zest for life on the cusp of adulthood without a whiff of pandering or condescension. The boys will do some growing up during this one crazy summer, and the film will grow up with them. Slowly, parents don’t seem quite as lame, the hijinx aren’t as silly and some important lessons about love, sex, death and friendship hang in the air just long enough to hit just hard enough.

Fuckdogs are still funny, though, homie, just like a surprise punch to the nuts.

New In Theaters

Self Portrait

Leave a comment

Frida

by Rachel Willis

Director Carla Gutiérrez lets Frida Kahlo speak through her words, photos, and most movingly, self-portraits (including images from her illustrated diary) in the documentary Frida.

The film moves through the years of Kahlo’s life, weaving in her own words and images from her young life. Film from the time period helps set the scene of Frida’s childhood in Mexico. Photos of Kahlo and her parents illustrate her spoken memories.

The documentary makes impressive use of Kahlo’s paintings to bring the legend to life. This is a documentary that puts the soul of the artist front and center of her own story.

When Frida tries to bring in its own artistry, it suffers by comparison. The choice to highlight certain sections of black and white film in bright colors feels tacky compared to the rich paintings. Used to better effect are animations that enliven the artist’s works.

In addition to Kahlo’s own words, voices from those who knew her pepper the film. Classmates, former boyfriends, and friends add layers to the portrait the film paints.

It is impossible to study Kahlo’s life without examining her relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera. His influence on her life was profound, as was hers on his.

Kahlo’s emotional highs and lows allow the audience to know her in a way that enhances an understanding of her art. Like so many artists, the true impact of her work would only be understood after her death. But in life, it brought her joy.

For those unfamiliar with Frida Kahlo, this is a lush and impressive introduction to her life and art.

New In Theaters

Ordinary People

Leave a comment

One Life

by George Wolf

Back in 2015, Sir Nicholas Winton passed away at the age of…106.

Healthy diet? Lots of cardio? Maybe, but One Life lets us know Winton could have subsisted on little more than whiskey, smokes, and the unlimited good karma from his days as a young man on a humanitarian mission that put faith in “ordinary people.”

In the years before World War II, “Nicky” (Johnny Flynn) was a London stockbroker. But as Hitler and the Nazis marched across Europe, Nicky committed himself to saving as many Jewish children as he could, spearheading a committee to place the children with foster families in the U.K.

Years later, the older Nicky (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Grete (Lenas Olin) begin cleaning out their house, which brings him face to face with an old briefcase. Inside the satchel are the records from Nicky’s refugee network, and he begins to wonder if the story might be of interest to the local press.

It is.

Veteran television director James Hawes and the writing team of Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake adapt the book by Winton’s daughter Barbara as a standard take on an extraordinary story. Have plenty of tissues handy, which is a testament to the sheer power and timely urgency of Nicky’s life-saving work.

The flashback scenes are satisfactory, but lack the cinematic style and structure to find a unique voice amid the holocaust dramas we’ve seen in just the last several years.

It is the later narrative thread – with, unsurprisingly, a truly touching turn by Hopkins – that allows One Life to leave its mark. Overdue accolades only seem to increase Nicky’s despair over the lives he couldn’t save, and Hopkins is able to craft the haunted man with a nuance that underscores all the good that can come from turning care into action.

The film’s final act puts the effect of Sir Nicholas’s work in very specific, very human and very public terms. And even if you remember hearing about the goosebump-inducing way the “British Schindler” finally got his flowers, One Life makes sure those goosebumps will come again.

New In Theaters

Fourth Helping of Dumplings

Leave a comment

Kung Fu Panda 4

by Hope Madden

Animated sequels often work out. Every time you think “Do we really need another Toy Story?” you get one more cartoon masterpiece. Each How to Train Your Dragon movie is a stunner. And Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was not only better than any previous Puss in Boots film, it was better than any Shrek film.

So why not a fourth Kung Fu Panda? Literally no one expected the 2008 original to be a charming, lovely, thoroughly entertaining Oscar nominee. A couple more episodes in and maybe directors Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Stine have the power to entirely reimagine this franchise, find a universal truth and existential meaning that allows this installment to transcend its late-stage sequel position, a la Toy Story 3. Or Toy Story 4.

No, but it’s cute.

Po (Jack Black, lovable even if it’s only his voice) has been named the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, which means he must find his successor as Dragon Warrior. But he doesn’t want to. He finally found something he’s good at—kicking butt—and he’s kind of famous for it. And maybe he just fears change.

But all this successor stuff will have to wait. The Chameleon (Viola F. Davis) has a nefarious plan that needs thwarting and Po’s off to handle the situation with the help of this little thieving fox (Awkwafina, who may be voicing every animated film to come out, but she’s great at it).

Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is disappointed. Naturally.

Hoffman is one of only a handful of returning voice talent—Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogan, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and David Cross are noticeably absent. But Ian McShane returns, and that’s a voice we can all listen to all day long, villainous or not. Plus, there’s more room for new characters.

Davis is characteristically wonderful as the evildoer, but it’s really the budding relationship between frenemies Po and Zhen (Awkwafina) that compels interest. Not every actor can carry off animation, but both Black and Awkwafina shine.

The animation is good looking enough. It’s not gorgeous, but it’s nice. The action is fun, the characters are funny enough, and the lessons are solid. And there are these three bloodthirsty little bunnies, and I am a fan.

Kung Fu Panda 4 breaks no new ground, transcends no limitations, but it entertains throughout and delivers a pleasant bit of family-friendly fun. Plus reimagined Ozzy and Britney are a delight.

New In Theaters

Can You See What I See?

Leave a comment

Totem

by Brandon Thomas

By definition, a totem is “a natural object or animal that is believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and that is adopted by it as an emblem.” With Totem, her second feature-film, director Lila Aviles approaches the esoteric idea of totems through the eyes of a curious 7-year-old girl who is trying to understand the familial chaos surrounding her. 

Having been dropped off at her grandfather’s house, Sol (Naima Senties) spends the day wandering from room to room, conversation to conversation, as the adults around her rush to set up a birthday party for Sol’s ailing father. As night falls and the party inches closer, Sol tries to make sense of the mixture of emotions, reactions, and actions coming from each member of her family.

The bulk of Totem is told solely through Sol’s eyes. It’s not a candy-coated depiction of a child’s viewpoint but it’s still an honest one. There’s a feeling of wonderment in even the most mundane things Sol observes. As children, many of us focused on the tiniest of details and differences around us. It’s something the camera captures expertly as is floats through the scene – making the audience feel less like an observer and more a part of the family. Visually, the use of the 1.33:1 aspect ratio – while probably overused in many modern movies – feels at home in the story Totem is telling. This tighter ratio that makes the image look cramped is a perfect visual metaphor for Sol’s large extended family crammed together in her grandfather’s modest home. 

Despite the melancholy backdrop of the party, Totem never succumbs to heaviness or melodrama.  Each member of Sol’s family is trying to make sense of their own fear and impending grief surrounding her father’s illness. For Sol, this difference is confusing and somewhat alienating. For us, the audience, it’s honest and all too relatable. 

It’s never made clear how much Sol knows about her father’s condition. However, despite his circumstances, Sol’s love for her father is undeniable as are his reciprocated feelings, even though they are shared through pain and suffering. For Sol, the most important thing is seeing her father and feeling his embrace.

And for us that becomes the most important thing too.

New In Theaters

Black Metal Kung Fu

Leave a comment

The Invisible Fight

by Christie Robb

Picture it: the Soviet-Chinese border, 1973. Three Chinese martial-artists dressed up like they are about to join John Travolta for a Saturday night at the discotheque,  wire-fu their way into Soviet territory and kick the shit out of some guards.

One of the guards, Rafael (Ursel Tilk) falls in love. With kung fu.

Determined to learn, despite the practice being banned in the USSR, Rafael tries to teach himself. Then, his car fortuitously breaks down in front of a Russian Orthodox monastery.  There, in a take on the Shaolin Monastery (birthplace of Shaolin Kung Fu), Rafael begins his true training, both physical and metaphysical.

Only in director Rainer Sarnet’s (November) movie, the trappings of Chinese kung fu are replaced with the long beards, black floor-length gowns, and gilt religious treasures of the Russian Orthodox aesthetic. And all the hand movements are derived from the symbolism of religious iconography.

The look is bright 70s pop art. The sound effects are cartoonlike. The music is Black Sabbath. The fight sequences are amusing and often manage to use food. (I’ve never seen someone weaponize a pierogi before.)

The only thing that got in the way of a thoroughly enjoyable movie-time was the sexual politics. The film really wanted to sort its female characters into the roles of either Madonna-mother or whore-demon. But maybe that’s more the Church’s issue than the movie’s. The kung fu surrealist comedy has the kind of video-store cult-classic vibes that would make for a great weekend watch with a group of rowdy friends.