Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Family Ties

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B-Side: For Taylor

by Hope Madden

A plucky YA drama that embraces the messiness of grief, identity and general adolescence, B-Side: For Taylor sidesteps cliché in favor of nuance.

Jeannine Vargas is the titular Taylor, and she’s not having a great year. Her grades have slid to near failing since her adoptive mother died last year, and her adoptive father (Dave Huber) is so wrapped up in his own grief that he doesn’t know what to do about it. On top of that, every time Taylor stands up to the neighborhood bully (Dexter Farren Haag), her dad blames her, and she ends up in even more trouble.

Enter Da-Young (Jacky Jung), a new neighbor whose family has just emigrated from Korea. Da-Young needs help with her English. Taylor needs help finding her Korean birth parents.

The strength in writer/director Christina Yr. Lim’s film is the way it forgives its wounded and often unpleasant characters. There are no one-dimensional characters, even those whose stories remain unresolved and on the periphery. The result is a more authentic tale.

Vargas is especially strong, but Lim surrounds her lead with able support. Esther Moon, playing Da-Young’s demanding mother, delivers a performance that breathes humanity into what could easily have been a trope.

Jung’s upbeat teen brightens a film that deals with some pretty heavy material, and her comic sensibility is welcome. Huber struggles somewhat in the depressed father role, but he gives the character a vulnerability that adds depth to the film’s more emotional moments.

Lim doesn’t pretend that families are easy, or that fixes come quickly if at all. The families in this film struggle, each member trying to find their fit. The lonesome heartache of questioning your worth to those who should love you haunts the entire film. But B-Side: For Taylor is about resilience, forgiveness and acceptance.

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Fresh Catch

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The Little Mermaid

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

After knocking it out of the park early with The Jungle Book, Disney’s been hit-or-miss with the live-action reboots of its classic animation tales, especially the nearly shot-for-shot reimaginings. But there was plenty of reason for optimism when it came to Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid.

Halle Bailey shines as the irrepressible adolescent Ariel. She’s in fine voice, and thanks to some script updates from writer David Magee, the character has agency. She’s utterly charming, and – again thanks to some updating to the material – Jonah Hauer-King has an actual character to dig into. His Prince Eric has depth and personality. Both characters mirror each other in their longing and belief that they don’t into their own worlds. It’s easy to root for them.

But how is Ursula, one of the best Disney villains of all time?

Happy to report that Ursula the Sea Witch is still delightfully, deliciously evil. And the casting! Melissa McCarthy drips villainy as poor, unfortunate Ariel’s dastardly auntie. Her Ursula is campy, gloriously over the top and yet drolly above it all. The look is perfection, and her voice is magnificent. This villain is the highlight of the film.

And while we’re on casting, Javier Bardem makes a majestic King Triton, and some delightful voice work from Daveed Diggs as Sebastian and Awkwafina as Scuttle brighten scenes both in and out of the water.

Behind the camera, director Rob Marshall brings an impressive musical resume. From the Oscar-winning Chicago to the visionary Into the Woods to some dazzling sequences in the otherwise disappointing Nine, Marshall has proven he knows what makes a musical number pop onscreen.

Strangely, though, the film’s first big music moment, “Part of Your World,” seems a bit muted, leaving us wanting at least one more big crescendo for Bailey’s wonderful voice. Similarly, “Under the Sea” is rollicking fun, if not quite truly magical.

“Kiss the Girl” makes things right with a completely enchanting treatment, while Marshall and McCarthy both shine in a mischievously satisfying “Poor Unfortunate Souls.”

And while these numbers will remind you of the legendary talents of composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman (who sadly passed in 1991), the additional of Lin Manuel Miranda will be unmistakable. Miranda not only brings some timely lyrical updates, he also teams with Menken for original songs, including “Scuttlebutt,” a showcase for Awkwafina full of Miranda’s typically snappy wordplay.

The look of the film is mainly strong. Underwater sequences are not quite as impressive as they were in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but still better than Aquaman. Above the water line set pieces – including a thrilling shipwreck – are beautifully executed. But Marshall struggles with scenes that break that barrier. When he can’t rely entirely on CGI for water scenes – when characters are partially submerged and the magical quality afforded by FX is missing – you feel it.

And as Ariel and her Prince struggle to find each other, you also feel the karmic beauty of the film’s culturally diverse cast – starting right at the top. Themes about different worlds living in harmony resonate more deeply when everyone doesn’t look the same.

This isn’t a revelation, and the film doesn’t treat it as one. It’s one of the many things The Little Mermaid gets right, and another example of how Marshall and his terrific ensemble manage to navigate the spotty squalls and bring this one home.

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Smells Fishy

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The Lure

by Hope Madden

Who’s up for Polish vampire mermaids?

You do not have to ask me twice!

Gold (Michalina Olszanska) and Silver (Marta Mazurek) are not your typical movie mermaids, and director Agnieszka Smoczynska’s feature debut The Lure is not your typical – well, anything.

The musical fable offers a vivid mix of fairy tale, socio-political commentary, whimsy and throat tearing. But it’s not as bizarre a combination as you might think.

The Little Mermaid is actually a heartbreaking story. Not Disney’s crustacean song-stravaganza, but Hans Christian Andersen’s bleak meditation on the catastrophic consequences of sacrificing who you are for someone undeserving. It’s a cautionary tale for young girls, really, and Lure writer Robert Bolesto remains true to that theme.

The biggest differences between Bolesto’s story and Andersen’s: 80s synth pop, striptease and teeth. At its heart, The Lure is a story about Poland – its self-determination and identity in the Eighties. That’s where Andersen’s work is so poignantly fitting.

Not that you’ll spend too much time in the history books. The context serves the purpose of grounding the wildly imaginative mix of seediness, hope and danger on display.

The film opens with a trio of musicians enjoying themselves on a Warsaw waterfront before hearing a siren song. Cut to screaming, and then to a deeply bizarre nightclub where a kind of Eastern European burlesque show welcomes its two newest performers – mermaids.

From there we explore a changing Warsaw from the perspective of a very fringe family. Mystical creatures play nice – and sometimes not-so-nice – among the city’s thrill seekers and the finned sisters need to decide whether they want to belong or whether they are who they are.

But that’s really too tidy a description for a film that wriggles in disorienting directions every few minutes. There are slyly feminist observations made about objectification, but that’s never the point. Expect other lurid side turns, fetishistic explorations, dissonant musical numbers and a host of other vaguely defined sea creatures to color the fable.

In fact, Olszanska’s film is strongest when it veers away from its fairy tale roots and indulges in its own weirdness.

Whatever its faults, The Lure will hook you immediately and change the way you think of mermaids.

New In Theaters

Family

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Fast X

by Hope Madden

We are ten films into the Fast and Furious franchise. So let’s just start with some obvious points. #1, Vin Diesel is easily the most uninteresting thing about 9 of the 10 films (he’s not in #3).

The most interesting thing continues to be the set pieces – the fisticuffs, city explosions, flying car shenanigans. Director Louis Leterrier had some big tires to fill stepping into the tenth episode, and those two Transporter films are not pedigree enough. But he more than holds his own, even if the ridiculous nature of most of these will have you laughing out loud.

I laughed out loud many times. This is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen this year – mainly unintentionally, but how fun!

And then the other reason to like this franchise: the villains. Most of them wind up falling to Dom’s charms and joining his cult, but still! And a ton of them are back for this one: Statham, Mirren, Cena, Theron, and now, Momoa.

Jason Momoa has a ball, all swagger and silliness as the devil – a foe so evil that all previous villains (even those who sought to end the world; even those who actually killed members of Dom’s beloved family) quake in his presence. His every moment onscreen is a joy, but I honestly think one particular scene with toenail polish might have been added late just to show us how amazing he can be.

The core group – the family – of course returns, although the adventure splits them up to allow opportunities to bloat the run time. I mean, to give each of them arcs and storylines. Tyrese Gibson and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges lead the comic relief squad. They head one way while Uncle Jakob (John Cena) takes Dom’s precious son a different direction.

Most interesting, per usual, is whatever Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) does. It mainly involves Oscar winner Brie Larson (making her F&F debut as Mr. Nobody’s daughter) and Oscar winner Charlize Theron (who, once again, delivers a performance far better than the material deserves).

Cameos galore, plus a stinger you’ve heard about but probably still want to stick around to see, add to both the run time and the fun.

Somewhere around Justin Lin’s Fast 5 (ironic, given the Fast X storyline), Dom and his family just became superheroes, flying, impenetrable, imperturbable superheroes. Yes, you will hear the word family more often than every other word in the script combined. No, Diesel never acts.

I mean, he can. We all saw Saving Private Ryan once up on a time. He just doesn’t do it here. He’s a gravelly voiced Buddha, as he always has been. And he’s the least compelling element in the film or the series, as he always has been. It takes nothing way from the film. It never has.

Fast X. Dumb as hell. Thumbs up all around.

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Do the Hustle

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White Men Can’t Jump

by George Wolf

A few months ago I noticed the TV ads pitching the “Jack Harlow meal” at KFC and remembered I had no idea who Jack Harlow was.

That was on me. Since then, I’ve learned he’s a popular rapper, guested on SNL and is making his acting debut in Hulu’s new remake of White Men Can’t Jump.

The good news: he’s a bit stiff but decent, and like Woody Harrelson in 1992, knows his way around a basketball court. But while the chemistry between Harlow and co-star Sinqua Walls (Shark Night) is more than adequate, it can’t touch the fun and edgy dynamic of Woody and Wesley that drove the original.

Director Calmatic (House Party) teams with Black-ish writers Kenya Barris and Doug Hall for a largely familiar premise. White Jeremy (Harlow) and Black Kamal (Walls) team up to hustle some unsuspecting marks and eventually compete in a big street ball tournament.

Give Barris and Hall credit for updating the race-related humor with some smart and savvy barbs (many delivered through the winning support of Myles Bullock and Vince Staples), but that’s about the only aspect of the new narrative that doesn’t seem neutered.

Both Jeremy and Kamal still have issues at home (with Laura Harrier and Teyana Taylor, respectively), but the stakes don’t feel as authentic. And with the removal of the early double-cross that occurs in the first film, an important emotional layer is removed from the bond between the ballers, leaving only fast money as motivation.

The gap is filled with dueling backstories about knee injuries and brushes with the law, but ultimately, they both land as fairly generic diversions. As does the film.

There’s nothing really bad about the updated White Men Can’t Jump. There are timely laughs, a solid ensemble, and some perfectly acceptable hooping. But the lack of investment in character makes it hard to really care about who wins the tourney. Neither grit or desperate suspicion made this lineup, and if you’re still a fan of the old starters, they’ll be missed.

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The Guns of Navagroan

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Come Out Fighting

by Daniel Baldwin

War movies have been an action cinema staple since the dawn of filmmaking and men-on-a-mission movies are perhaps the most popular form of war film. Writer/director Steven Luke has carved out a niche for himself on the DTV action circuit making bargain budgeted World War II tales. Come Out Fighting is the latest of these.

As he did in his previous outings, Luke has assembled a nice, recognizable cast of genre actors. You’ve got indie martial arts superstar Michael Jai White (Blood & Bone, Black Dynamite), Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga), Tyrese Gibson (The Fast & Furious Saga), and an ever-grizzled Dolph Lundgren (no introduction required). All in all, not a bad assortment of fisticuff-throwing fellas to send into battle against a Nazi horde!

On paper, Come Out Fighting sounds like a fun little flick. In execution, however, it is anything but. The good news is that all of the men above have roles that are larger than cameos. The bad news is that they’re all too good for this film. Try as they might to hold it all together, their collective efforts cannot turn the tide on a bad script and even worse direction.

Anyone who watches the occasional direct-to-video actioner of this type knows to expect things like production design, costuming, and special effects work to not be on par with similar studio-produced fare. The best directors in this field still manage to overcome such limitations with sharper scripts, small but still thrilling setpieces, and low budget movie-making ingenuity. Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury is an excellent example of this, managing to check off that entire list in spite of its miniscule budget. Come Out Fighting, however, manages none of these things, instead serving up heaping helpings of bad blocking, poor scene geography, and some pretty glaring historical inaccuracies.

It does at least have something on its mind, as it digs into the prejudices that African American soldiers faced from their own white compatriots during the war. As commendable as that is, that simply isn’t enough to salvage an otherwise inept picture. If you’re in the mood for an engaging new slice o’ action-filled WWII entertainment this weekend, you’re better off seeking out the aforementioned Hell Hath No Fury or Jalmari Helander’s now-on-VOD revenger Sisu.

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In Bloom

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Master Gardener

by Hope Madden

A damaged man imposes order on his life, eventually growing confident enough in this structure to try to save someone else because he cannot save himself.

That’s right. This is a Paul Schrader movie. Like most of Schrader’s best features (First Reformed, The Card Counter, all the way back to his script for Taxi Driver) Master Gardener delivers a variation on that same riff. Lucky his characters are so compelling they keep us watching.

In this case, that character – the titular gardener – is Narvel (Joel Edgerton). Narvel tells us, via his journal: Gardening is a belief in the future, that change will come in its due time.

Is Schrader growing more optimistic? Or will we grow to hope for Narvel only to witness the worst possible outcome (a la Card Counter)? Longtime fans may get a little nervous before the general moviegoer, but either way, Schrader sets a hook early.

The other element that jumps out early is the look of this film. Schrader’s gift for visual composition has never seen so exceptional a vehicle. Fitting, given the beauty of a garden. The lovely orderliness of Narvel’s garden is set against the riotous disarray that arrives in the shape of Mya (Quintessa Swindell): sloppy clothes, hair everywhere, no plans, no future. Maya doesn’t crave orderliness. Mya just is.

What Mya is not is like her Great Aunt Norma (Sigourney Weaver, letter perfect as the wealthy matriarch of the estate). Norma has arranged for Mya to apprentice on the property. She’d like Narvel, or “Sweet Pea” as she calls him, to look after the girl.

The arrival of this outsider sets wheels in motion. Narvel’s once orderly world now falls victim to his own past, drug dealers, the Feds. Edgerton’s a solid choice for the role, stoic but roiling with regret and quietly desperate for redemption. Swindell’s free spirit, tempered with the justifiable righteousness of youth, offers an excellent counterweight and Weaver outshines them all, stealing every inch of scene she’s in.

But they don’t have enough to do. Redemption feels unearned. Drug addiction is treated as too easily overcome. Most troubling is the way racism is skirted throughout the film.

“Gardening is the manipulation of the natural world, the creation of order out of disorder,” Narvel tells us. Filmmaking can provide much the same exercise. But forgiveness comes too easy for this damaged antihero, and Master Gardener feels too much like Schrader light.

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Classic Case

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Carmen

by George Wolf

For this latest reimagining of the classic story, director Benjamin Millepied credits inspiration from Prosper Mérimée’s original novella from 1845, and Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” from 1824.

Flashing more modern vibrancy through culturally rich music and dance, this new Carmen arrives as a wonder of visionary composition that struggles to find an equally compelling connection to its characters.

The writing team of Loic Barrere, Alexander Dinelaris and Lisa Loomer crafts a surface-level tale of lovers on the run. Aidan (Paul Mescal) is a troubled Marine veteran volunteering on a night patrol along the Mexican border, while Carmen (Melissa Barrera) is trying to cross after the death of her mother. A violent altercation leads to casualties, and the two are soon trying to stay one step ahead of authorities.

Millepied (choreographer and co-star of Black Swan) knows his way around a dance number, getting an assist from flamenco specialist Marina Tamayo for sequences that sport some thrilling fluidity. The acclaimed talents of cinematographer Jörg Widmer (The Tree of Life, V for Vendetta) and composer Nicholas Britell (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) are also on full display, rounding out a veteran stable of technical skill that consistently lifts the film’s imagery and scope.

Mescal (Aftersun) continues to show a gift for quiet nuance, Barrera (In the Heights, Scream, Scream VI) finally breaks out of her reliance on posing, and the veteran Rossy de Palma (various Almodóvar projects) steals scenes as a savvy nightclub owner, but the script seems content to keep depth at a distance.

Pushkin’s centuries-old themes of noble savages and the tragedy of life are too often given a heavy hand, needing a rescue by the visual poetry on display.

This Carmen tells us “dancing will you heal you.” Indeed, it’s one of the cures for what ails a less than passionate romance.

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CrackBerry to WhackBerry

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BlackBerry

by George Wolf

So, a voice on the line says, “You have a collect call from ‘What the f%& is happening’!”

That’s not really the caller’s name.

He’s actually Jim Balsillie (a terrific Glenn Howerton), co-CEO of BlackBerry Limited, and he’s having yet another temper tantrum. The pairing of Balsillie’s bare-knuckled business sense with the tech genius of other CEO Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel, perfectly awkward) made the company an early leader in the cell phone game, but things have started to unravel. Fast.

It’s a wild and often unhinged rise and fall, told with gleeful abandon by BlackBerry director and and co-writer Matt Johnson, who also co-stars as Doug Fregin, Lazaridis’s original business partner.

While operating a Canadian tech supply company called Research in Motion in 1996, Lazaridis and Fregin hatched the idea of utilizing North America’s unused bandwidth for a cellphone with built-in capability for email and messaging.

Balsillie, a Harvard-educated d-bag with self promotion tunnel vision, knew what the geeks had, and gave them his business street smarts in exchange for a big piece of the pie.

Johnson (Operation Avalanche) draws the battle lines early, framing the unfocused nerds with jittery, The Office-style camerawork amid chaotic workplaces while the calculating, take-no-prisoners suits live within crisp lines, confident movement and unforgiving architecture.

The colliding of worlds is engaging enough, but the delightfully sharp humor and first-rate ensemble (also including Michael Ironside) turn these based on true events into a rollicking, can’t-look-away slice of history.

There’s so much here that resonates – friendship, ambition, cutthroat capitalism and just feeling like an outcast. And at the root is the push and pull of commerce (Balsillie: “Are you familiar with the saying, ‘perfect is the enemy of good?”) vs. science (Lazaridis: “Well, ‘good enough’ is the enemy of humanity.”)

BlackBerry is a fast, funny and often thrilling ride, one that ends up worthy of both time spent and time capsule.

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Moonchild

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Crater

by Hope Madden

Following three increasingly competent features (Easier with Practice, C.O.G., The Stanford Prison Experiment), filmmaker Kyle Patrick Alvarez moved into episodic television. His return to feature length feels a bit more like TV than film, but Crater marks new territory for Alvarez in family entertainment.

The Disney+ feature, written by John Griffin (also mainly TV), follows a quintet of adolescents on a joyride across the moon.

The effortlessly charming Mckenna Grace (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) is the new kid on the helium mining colony. Caleb (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) and his buddies need her to help them break into the basement garage so they can hotwire a rover and take it to the “crater” Isaiah’s dad was always talking about. They never expected her to want to go with them.

The film’s anticapitalism message (ironic coming from Disney) is welcome, as we commiserate with the five children of miners – each with no future outside of mining, except for Isaiah. When Isaiah’s father died in the mine, the insurance money bought his now-orphaned son a ticket off this rock.

But first, the kids go on an epic adventure that will change their lives.

It feels about as pre-packaged as it sounds, very Goonies or Stand By Me, but slicker, tidier and without the soul. Grace has proven to be nothing but an authentic talent since toddlerhood, really announcing her skill in 2017’s Gifted. But she’s given no real opportunity to create a character here.

Her co-stars struggle even more. Russell-Bailey can’t dig deep enough to manage the life-altering grief or rage a kid in his position would face, but at least his backstory is unveiled slowly. Isaiah’s best friend (Billy Barratt) just announces his trauma, then stares doe-eyed at both Grace and Russell-Bailey for the balance of the film. This isn’t a knock on the performance as much as it is the script and direction.

Crater cobbles together a lot of cliched ideas but can’t find any depth to explore. Instead Alvarez delivers a superficial and forgettable road trip movie in space.