Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Idol Hands

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Billy Idol Should Be Dead

by George Wolf

As great as Robert Patrick was in Terminator 2, Billy Idol would have made a pretty rad T-1000.

Billy was indeed up for the part, and a glimpse of his screen test with James Cameron is just one of the archival delights in Billy Idol Should Be Dead, a new doc that traces his life of curled lips, spiked hair and legendary rock god excess.

Adding plenty of never-before-seen footage to many of the sentiments from Billy’s 2014 memoir, director Jonas Åkerlund does a great job taking us inside young William Broad’s English upbringing and the Seventies punk scene that launched the Billy Idol persona and his early bands, Chelsea and Generation X.

Billy is refreshingly honest and self-reflective in the new interview footage, as Åkerlund often layers it with classic clips from the Eighties that accentuate how committed Idol was to the “sex, drugs and rock-n-roll” lifestyle.

But once the two-hour doc hits the halfway point, the career overview starts to suffer from a drifting focus. Billy’s longtime personal relationship with girlfriend Perri Lister gets plenty of scrutiny, while musical partner Steve Stevens is barely mentioned. Åkerlund (Lords of Chaos, Metallica Saved My Life) juggles a shifting timeline, animated segments, a black and white aesthetic and celebrity commentary (Miley Cyrus, Pete Townshend, etc.) with an approach that seems random. The film’s vision never feels fully formed, especially up against the heels of Morgan Neville’s expertly crafted Paul McCartney doc, Man on the Run.

And strangely, despite Åkerlund’s extensive experience in music videos, Idol’s catalog isn’t mined as deeply as it could be, and several chances to anchor some passages with more Idol hits are left unexplored.

The film might not reach the raw emotional honesty of docs such as Steve! (Martin) or Pee Wee as Himself, but for Billy Idol fans, there is plenty here to satisfy. From early clubs to MTV glory, from the gnarly scars of a motorcycle wreck to embracing family and moments as a doting grandfather, Billy Idol Should Be Dead does make you feel like you know a rock legend just a little bit better.

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Leave It to Beaver

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Hoppers

by Hope Madden

Funny, relevant, overstuffed and a little too busy, Pixar’s latest, Hoppers, throws a lot at you.

Mabel (Piper Curda) has always been a handful. In the film’s opening act, after she gets caught trying to break every elementary school classroom animal out of captivity, her frustrated mother drops her off with her grandmother. Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie) introduces Mabel to the calming effect of nature. As they age together, the two sit on a rock by the glade behind Granny’s, learning to be silent and feel a part of something bigger.

Then the mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), decides to bulldoze the glade to extend the city’s beltway, shortening commutes by 4 minutes! Through a series of events both clever and complicated, Mabel hijacks a research experiment, avatars her way into the robotic body of a beaver, infiltrates the local wildlife community, learns more than any human has ever learned about their hierarchy, and just about gets Jerry squished.

Hamm is perfect as Mabel’s foil, but the entire cast is excellent. From smaller supporting turns (Meryl Streep, Vanessa Bayer, and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. in one of his final roles) to larger roles (Bobby Moynihan, Dave Franco, Kathy Najimy), each voice brings life and wit to Pixar’s characteristically enthralling animation.

Co-writer/director Daniel Chong’s script, co-written with Jesse Andrews (Elio, Luca, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), is warm, forgiving and quite funny. Pixar has a knack with movies about a world unknown, even forbidden, to humans. Hoppers plays with that idea, and the thrill of being part of the animal world offers contagious joy.

It’s also an honestly emotional film, and Curda makes an excellent anchor for that emotion.

The film’s one big drawback is that it simply tries to do too much. At an hour and 45 minutes, it feels slightly longer than necessary, but more than anything, it is very complicated. Had Chong pruned some of the human world complexities, favoring instead the merry time spent in the surprising world of the animals, his film might find broader appeal. As is, it will delight older children and adults, although the littlest viewers may struggle to keep up.

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Knife Finds a Way

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Scream 7

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

There’s a lot to be said for the Scream franchise. Sure, Wes Craven’s 1996 iconic original delivered the shot of adrenaline needed to reimagine and reinvigorate the horror genre. But the fact is that, seven episodes in, the series doesn’t have a lot to be embarrassed by.

In case any unexpected callers ask, there are 12 Friday the 13th films, 8 Nightmare on Elm Street films (yes, we are counting the 2010 abomination), 9 Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, 12 Hellraisers, and 13 Halloweens in all. Hell, there are 8 Leprechaun films. And, in every case, most of the individual sequels are terrible. Some of them unwatchable. But not Scream.

Sure, Scream 3 was a step backward. Scream 4 was less beloved than it should have been. Scream 5 was a nice comeback, then 6 was a bit of a letdown. Still, seven episodes and we have no real stinkers. Including Scream 7, co-written and directed by the franchise’s original scribe, Kevin Williamson.

The storyline has veered back, after Melissa Barrera was fired, which prompted Jenna Ortega to quit. So, naturally, the property finally found the money to pay Neve Campbell to come back, and good thing they did. When Ghostface tracks Sidney Prescott down to the smalltown where she’s raising her three kids with husband/police chief Mark Evans (Joel McHale), she needs to keep her own history from echoing through her teenage daughter Tatum’s (Isabel May) life.  

Episode Seven is all about nostalgia, and a reminder of the years we all have invested. You’ll see plenty of familiar faces, including everyone’s favorite from the original film. There is a nicely organic reason for this, but the film’s core is about Sidney’s strained relationship with her daughter. That’s a weaker thread.

Williamson sells the new setting well enough, and with some understatement that feels refreshing. What isn’t subtle is the frayed nature of the mother/daughter dynamic, fueled by dialog and drama that’s forced and unearned.

The younger cast (including McKenna Grace, Michelle Randolph, Asa German, Celeste O’Connor and Sam Rechner), while perfectly talented, are slighted in terms of plot and character development. They only get a passing chance to school us on some new rules of the game, and benefit from the satisfying staging of just one standout kill.

The grownup side of the story is solid. It’s still a kick to see Campbell’s Sid and Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers doing their thing. There is still some teenage dumbassery involved, but this Scream is leaning into its age more than ever.

It’s less risky, and certainly after all this time, less groundbreaking. But Scream 7 is also less silly. Like a proud parent reminding the kids they can always come home, Williamson’s return gives the franchise some bloody comfort food to chew on.

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Rude Awakening

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Dreams

by Hope Madden

Early in Dreams, Michel Franco’s latest, a wealthy white guy at a board meeting says, “Why Mexicans? Isn’t there anybody here we can help?”

It’s a pristine boardroom, just the questioning Jake McCarthy (Rupert Friend), speaking to his benevolent father (Marshall Bell), and his philanthropic sister, Jennifer (Jessica Chastain). She gives him a playfully annoyed shake of the head, hands him a dossier to sign, and promises her “little projects” are all tax write offs. She and her father share a “what are we going to do with this guy?” smile and roll of the eyes.

Franco’s film is not subtle.

Chastain cuts an elegant figure, Franco’s cinematographer Yves Cape lingering over every meticulous ensemble, fetishizing each pair of impossible heels. She never smiles. There’s a hand ready to help her out of every vehicle as its door opens for her. She has never a hair out of place.

Except when she’s having energetic sex with Fernando (Isaac Hernández), the talented ballet dancer who’s just crossed the border and most of the US on his own to be with her.

The erotic thriller’s psychosexual politics are eye-catchingly surface level, with a heavy-handed examination of the American Dream driving the action. The role reversal—that the wealthy philanthropist is a woman and the beautiful ballet dancer in distress is a man—allows Franco provocative opportunities.

One of the most interesting things about Franco’s films, including Memory, also starring Chastaine, and 2022’s Sundown, is that, at just past the halfway mark, each becomes an entirely different film.

Dreams follows that path as well, although with less satisfying results.

Like Memory, Dreams considers power and consent in sexual relationships, and again, the latter film comes up shorter. Dreams seems more obviously built to provoke, more relentlessly opposed to choosing a side.

That feels less provocative and more irresponsible here. Whether, in the final image on the screen, we are expected to see the evil of privilege or the righteous glare of vengeance, what’s important to note is that no white men were harmed in the making of this film.

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Let Him Eat It

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The President’s Cake

by George Wolf

After winning two awards last year at Cannes, The President’s Cake missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature. That says much about how stacked the category is this time, because writer/director Hasan Hadi’s feature debut is an absolutely wondrous mix of empathy and gut-punch heartbreak.

In 1990s Iraq, nine year old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, in a remarkable debut of her own) lives with her feisty grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibet) in the poverty-stricken marshes. As “draw day” approaches at Lamia’s school, Bibi teaches her little tricks to avoid getting chosen for the compulsory “honors” of providing various items at the local celebration of President Saddam Hussein’s birthday.

But Lamia’s stern teacher sees through the scams, and the girl is picked for the most scrutinized task of all: baking the birthday cake.

Needless to day, failure would bring about some harsh consequences.

Though Bibi thinks she knows the best way forward for her granddaughter, Lamia strikes out on her own. Clutching her favorite rooster and conferring often with her friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), Lamia desperately seeks ways to acquire the precious baking ingredients that she cannot afford.

Buoyed by the two remarkably assured young performers, Hadi crafts the film with a delicate balance between childlike journey and harsh reality. Though Lamia’s travels through her homeland’s corruption, casual cruelty and degradation may recall The Painted Bird or Come and See, Hadi protects the innocence as fiercely as Lamia protects her rooster. His film’s heart aches for the plight of these people, even as it’s providing sly reminders that aspiring dictators share similar playbooks.

There is a tender, poetic beauty to be found here as well. The President’s Cake signals Hadi as a filmmaker full of insight and compassion, with the storytelling instincts to mine universal resonance from a uniquely intimate struggle.

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Play Thing

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Dolly

by Hope Madden

Fans of Savage Seventies Cinema, rejoice. Filmmaker Rod Blackhurst channels The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tourist Trap, and even a little bit of Ted Post’s 1973 freak show The Baby for his wooded horror, Dolly.

Macy (Fabianne Therese) and Chase (Seann William Scott) hike through the woods to a breathtaking overlook where Chase will pop the question. But they probably should have turned back at the first sign of those baby dolls nailed to the trees.

Soon enough, they meet Dolly (Max the Impaler, that’s quite a name), an enormous person whose whole noggin is hidden inside a cracked ceramic doll’s head. Dolly has a shovel, puts it to unusual use, and soon enough it’s just Dolly and her new baby, Macy, back at Dolly’s house.

Blackhurst nails the look and vibe of a 70s grindhouse horror show. And it’s not just tone, it’s also the content. Dolly gets nasty. Blackhurst intends to horrify you far more than frighten you. Whether it’s blood or body fluids or rancid food stuffs or broken bones that trip your gag reflex, he’s aiming to find it.

Ethan Suplee—you remember, the happy singing football player from Remember the Titans–cuts a far more intimidating presence as Daddy, and you can’t help but wonder about the backstory here at Dolly’s place. Kudos to Blackhurst, who co-writes with Brandon Weavil, for keeping it ambiguous.

Yes, if it’s an indie Seventies horror aesthetic you’re after, and logic and common sense are of less importance, then Dolly is for you. But if you crave one single scene of realistic behavior, the movie comes up short.

Therese can’t be blamed. She does what she can, her attempts at carving a heroic character are in and of themselves heroic. But Macy’s every action is made exclusively to further the plot and never, ever to create a believable character. If you have a tough time watching a person constantly abandoning weapons along with common sense, this film will frustrate you.

The excellent grindhouse violence and style are only equaled by the utter and distressing ridiculousness of the plot. So, even Steven, I guess.

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Teenage Wasteland

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This Is Not a Test

by Hope Madden

Take The Breakfast Club, eliminate the humor and add zombies and you’re headed in the direction of Adam MacDonald’s This Is Not a Test.

Olivia Holt is Sloane, an utterly miserable teenage girl. Her older sister took off, leaving her alone with her abusive dad. And if that’s not enough, the zombies are here. And not that slow, rambling kind. It’s the red-eyed, fast moving, pissed off kind.

MacDonald, working from a script he co-wrote with Courtney Summers, pays tribute to his Z-film inspirations the moment Sloane steps out onto her front porch to take in the suburban carnage.

So, yes, both Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake—among others—get a nod. Which makes you wonder, as you must wonder every time somebody makes another zombie movie, why do it? What new idea can you bring to the genre?

I suppose it’s the teen angst angle that John Hughes exploited for an entire career. And though there are cinematic pauses (human reactions lagging to frustrating slowness so the camera can witness the unfurling action), stupid choices (almost a necessity in most horror flicks), and a lot of shouty drama, somehow it feels likelier given that our protagonists are all high school seniors.

They can be dramatic with their friends, that’s all I’m saying.

Holt is solid and the young cast around her ably handles the melodrama and action. Corteon Moore is particularly impressive in the kind of Alpha male jock character rarely allowed nuance.

Likewise, Luke Macfarlane pops in mid film to be unseemly, desperate and creepy in equal measure.

Sloane’s arc is not with her classmates, though, but with her sister. There’s a simplicity to the arc that allows the carnage to get showy without overpowering it. But that simplicity adds to the film’s relative ordinariness.

There’s nothing bad about This Is Not a Test. Yes, character behavior is often frustrating, but not in a way that makes caricatures out of characters. The problem is that there’s nothing exceptional about the film, either.

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A House Divided

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Kokuho

by Matt Weiner

A sprawling epic about the orphaned son of a yakuza boss and his single-minded dedication to becoming the greatest kabuki actor of his era is now Japan’s highest grossing live-action movie. After three hours of near total immersion in the kabuki world, it’s easy to see why.

Sang-il Lee’s adaptation of Shuichi Yoshida’s novel Kokuho kicks off with a gripping gangster showdown that leaves Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa) without a family or direction in life. An impromptu performance on that fateful night provides a lifeline to a different path when his innate acting talent is recognized by the revered kabuki actor Hanai Hanjiro II (Ken Watanabe).

Hanjiro offers the boy a home—along with a rigorous, even physically abusive apprenticeship—much to the chagrin of Hanjiro’s son, Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama). Where Kikuo has the otherworldly talent and dedication of an outsider, Shunsuke is cocky and lazy, his status protected by the conservative traditions of kabuki and family bloodlines.

When Kikuo’s fortunes rise as Hanjiro’s favorite heir, a confrontation with Shunsuke seems inevitable. And so it is, but in ways that end up being far more complex, moving and unexpected than the pair’s rivalry first suggests. The story (adapted by Satoko Okudera) has the length and breathing room to pack in its fair share of rises and falls, but a deftness is always there to defuse the melodrama in favor of a slow burn that the rivals carry with them across decades.

Kokuho is after a more spiritual catharsis, made all the more potent with the demanding strictures of kabuki that fill almost all the time spent with the stage actors. Lee provides only glimpses of a rapidly modernizing country beyond the walls of the stage. And yet the weight of these changes is felt all around, as patrons come and go, living legends die and families grapple with what this artistic pursuit means and whether or not it’s worth it.

Watanabe is born to his role, with an uncanny ability to summon warmth, fear and regret with the briefest of expressions. His sons, both chosen and adopted, are locked into a replay of the sins of the father, and Yoshizawa and Yokohama play off each other to heartbreaking effect.

Kokuho devotes extensive time to the kabuki performances themselves, not just the rehearsals. The art direction from Yohei Taneda is a stunning highlight of the film, and goes a long way toward explaining even to an audience unfamiliar with kabuki why Kikuo believes the sacrifice to be worth it in the name of art. And that is the question being asked, by Kikuo and those whose lives he alters for better and worse. What if we’ve misunderstood the Faustian bargain all these years? Maybe the devil can have our best interests at heart too, if it means achieving the sublime for even a moment.

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C’est Ce Se

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Psycho Killer

by Hope Madden

Gavin Polone’s Psycho Killer had one strike against it going in, for me. The film takes us along for the ride on the Satanic Slasher’s cross-country killing spree.

And while James Preston Rogers cuts an impressive figure as the serial killer at the center of this cat and mouse chase, a Satanic murderer is a conservative straw dog cliché as tired and damaging as witches, maybe worse.

That aside, Polone, working from a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, The Killer, Metalocaplyse: Army of the Doomstar), crafts a taut thriller.

Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) is Trooper Jane Archer. After witnessing her husband’s murder, Archer determines to take the shot she missed and put an end to the Satanic Slasher.

Campbell delivers a properly heroic performance. Smart, driven, and with an aggressive lack of cooperation from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies but nothing to divide her attention, Archer figures out the psycho’s trajectory.

And though her story involves one almost inescapable cliché, having a woman play the cop who misses the shot that could save their spouse and then, job be damned, scours the country to kill the bastard—it’s a nice gender role reversal.

The villain’s concept impresses: the hair, the mask, the coats, the voice. His mythology is sometimes clunky, other times lazy, but it’s rarely the backstory that makes a villain memorable. This guy’s creepy.

Logan Miller offers solid support with limited screentime. Likewise, Malcolm McDowell lends his unmistakably infernal voice to great effect, providing the film with a bit of dramatic flourish. But otherwise, Psycho Killer blends police procedural and revenge flick with plenty of tension and not a lot of fanfare.

There’s fairly little onscreen violence. Though an awful lot of grisly carnage is mentioned, there are only a few scenes in the film depicting it. Two of them are grimly subversive and worth the ticket price.

The third act comes seems to come from nowhere, but it’s a big capper to the slow building momentum of the Slasher’s bloody journey. Psycho Killer isn’t perfect, but it’s a tight, entertaining bit of a thrill.

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Monster-in-Law

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The Dreadful

by Hope Madden

Have you ever seen Kaneto Shindô’s1964 masterpiece Onibaba? Dude, you should!

Writer/director Natasha Kermani’s latest film, The Dreadful, reteams Game of Thrones stars Sophie Turner and Kit Harington, alongside the flawless as ever Marcia Gay Harden, in a medieval retelling of the same Buddhist parable that inspired Shindô’s tale.

Turner is Anne, a pious young woman whose husband Seamus (Laurence O’Fuarain) has been called up to fight in 15th Century England. She lives on the outskirts of a tiny hamlet near the sea, in a hovel with her mother-in-law, Morwen (Harden).

Times are tough for the two women, and before too long, Morwen’s exploiting Anne’s naivete with ever darker schemes to earn money. But when Seamus’s friend returns home without him, Morwen sees a future without a son, without Anne, and with very little hope for survival.

Morwen tries to convince Anne that leaving her would be an unforgivable sin, damning Anne to hell. Out of the other side of her mouth, Morwen contends that the increasingly bloody criminal activity the women are involved in is, in fact, entirely forgivable.

Seamus’s friend Jago (Harington), the bearer of bad news, has other plans for Anne and they definitely do not include her mother-in-law. Because Kermani’s take on the parable sees Anne as the protagonist, the battle then is her own fight between piety, devotion and pity, and a second chance at love.

Unfortunately, Anne is an impossible character. There is no conceivable logic to a choice to stay with Morwen, so no real conflict of any kind. While she seems to feel pity and some fear for her mother-in-law, she doesn’t seem to harbor any guilt for her own complicity in the crimes, or worry over punishment of any sort, criminal or spiritual.

If Turner never manages to convey a clear character, Kermani seems equally mystified. The final act of the film is unearned and unsatisfying.

It might be too much to hope for some of the visual majesty and honest to God horror of Shindô’s film, but Kermani can’t find her own way through the parable well enough to leave an impression.

You should definitely watch Onibaba, though.