Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Rattlin’ Bog

Leave a comment

Moloch

by Hope Madden

A bog is a nice spot for horror, eh? You think you’re walking along a lovely field when suddenly, you’re sucked in. Like quicksand, only mossier.

Betriek (Sallie Harmsen) and her daughter Hanna (Noor van der Velden) live with Hanna’s grandparents on the edge of one such Dutch mire in Nico van den Brink’s Moloch. A body just turned up out there, perfectly preserved for maybe hundreds of years.

And then another appears. And another. And another—each a female from a different era. The discoveries trigger other unusual behaviors, all of it corresponding with the town’s celebration of an unsavory history.

It sounds a little contrived, a little familiar, but van den Brink’s naturalistic approach to the story offsets any hokeyness. Harmsen’s spooked but reasonable lead makes for a clear-eyed hero, one who rails against her lot in life quietly but surely. Her choices sometimes feel erratic but never unnatural, and the cast around her shares a lovely and reasonably strained chemistry.

All performances are more raw than polished, which amplifies an authenticity struggling to anchor the supernatural elements.

Because scary stories are scarier if you believe them.

Not that the film ignores its spectral side. Ringing bells, musical interludes, moments in an aquarium and other highlights of the film’s sound design lend Moloch a supernatural eeriness that deepens its dread.

Van der Velden shows keen instincts for allowing his tale to unravel in its own time. Close attention to detail allows a rich understanding of the story Moloch tells. Whether you devote that kind of attention to the film or not, Moloch gets its point across.

New In Theaters

Ticket to Ride

Leave a comment

The Wheel

by George Wolf

Remember that scene near the end of Parenthood, where Grandma compares life to an amusement park ride?

Well, if you add layers of subtlety, a much more intimate focus, and subtract several decades of living, you’ll find yourself near the heart of The Wheel, a surprisingly compelling look at relationship dynamics.

I say “surprising” because films don’t often look to characters this young for hard-won insight.

Walker (Taylor Gray) and Albee (Amber Midthunder from TV’s Legion) met when they were 12, got married at 16, and now 8 years in are close to splitting. In a last ditch effort to patch things up, they retreat to a secluded B&B and promise each other “brutal honesty.”

For Walker, that starts with following the directions of a “save your marriage” self help book. But for Albee, it means mocking that book, her husband, and the very idea that the marriage can be saved.

The film’s early going as a two-hander feels a bit desperate, but director Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine, screenplays for High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank) and writer Trent Atkinson smartly bring in another couple for some important push and pull.

Fortysomethings Carly (Bethany Anne Lind) and Ben (Nelson Lee) run the B&B, and are making final preparations for their own wedding. Despite a longstanding rule to avoid mixing with guests (not to mention Ben’s assessment of Albee as a “monster”), Carly reaches out to the young couple.

The scars revealed are not shocking and the insights less than revelatory, but four terrific performances make it easy to care about these characters, and Pink’s gently assured pace means the eventual catharsis feels more earned than force fed.

But even at its most familiar, the film carries a freshness that comes from never losing empathy for the type of characters generally used as convenient fodder. The Wheel believes in them, and that makes all the difference in the ride.

New In Theaters

Milkbone of Blood

Leave a comment

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

by Hope Madden

Who’s up for a perfectly harmless, slight, not especially funny cartoon? Well, depending on how hot it is outside and how bored your kids are, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank could be worse.

Hank (Michael Cera) dreams of being a samurai. Ika Chu (Ricky Gervais) dreams of ridding the land of this ugly little town that ruins the view from his palace. How about making Hank the samurai that protects that ugly village? Hank will be a terrible samurai! He’s a dog! Who ever heard of a dog samurai?

Well, who ever heard of a cat Western? But that’s what we essentially have here, because Hank has crossed many treacherous lands to find his way to the land of cats so he could fulfill his destiny, even if nobody there wants him. Like at all.

OK, maybe little Emiko (Kylie Kuioka), who also dreams of becoming a samurai. But definitely not Jimbo (Samuel L. Jackson), the town drunk who used to be a samurai before shame led him to catnip.

It sounds like it should be funny. There’s also the supporting voice cast, if you need to be impressed: George Takei, Michelle Yeoh, Djimon Hounsou, Aasif Mandvi, Gabriel Iglesias, Mel Brooks.

Brooks also co-wrote the screenplay, which explains a lot. A dozen or so jokes littered throughout the film might have been funny 60 or so years before the target audience was born. Very few jokes connect to dogs, cats, samurai films, Westerns—anything in particular, but they lack that fun, random feel. A giant toilet figures prominently. There is flatulence.

Cera and Jackson definitely share an odd couple quality—enough that I’d love to see them do a live action film together. But Yeoh and Takei are wasted, and Gervais gets no good dialog to deliver (though he does a villain well). Hounsou’s fun.

The movie looks fine—not great, but fine. Its themes about acceptance are muddled and soft peddled, though—another victim of weak writing.

A profoundly odd short film called Bad Hamster precedes Paws of Fury, though. There’s that. Just depends how hot it is, I guess.

New In Theaters

Marsh Mellow Girl

Leave a comment

Where the Crawdads Sing

by George Wolf

“I had to do life alone. People don’t stay.”

Well-placed within a novel, those words could have major impact. But when you tell it to a movie audience, the power of your visual medium is wasted. You’re not showing us anything, you’re reading to us.

And like so many of these stories of a special girl who hides in plain sight, the big screen version of the Delia Owens bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing employs voiceover narration too early and too often. That’s disappointing, because the film does have its moments.

Most of those moments come from Daisy Edgar-Jones, who stars as Kya Clark, the “Marsh Girl” of Barkley Cove, NC who’s on trial in the late 1960s for the murder of local rich boy Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson).

Kya won’t agree to a plea deal, and throughout her defense from kindly lawyer Tom Milton (the always reliable David Strathairn), director Olivia Newman weaves in flashbacks of a reclusive young girl who grows up alone in the marshes, somehow emerging closer to Miss Carolina than Nell.

Overthinking it? Maybe, but seeing Beast of the Southern Wild screenwriter Lucy Alibar’s writing credit brings more attention to how often this self-reliance tale leans into fantasy. She and Newman sanitize the southern swamp song for convenience, replacing realistic grit with a makeover-in-waiting.

But if you haven’t read the book, there is a surprise or two in store, and a nuanced turn from Edgar-Jones (Fresh, TV’s Normal People and War of the Worlds) that stands out in a parade of broadly-brushed role players.

The lessons about classism and misogyny may be admirable, but they’re as obvious and as soft-peddled as the quick glimpses of racism and the idyllic marsh environment that’s somehow free of thunderstorms or bug bites.

Where the Crawdads Sing does Southern Gothic like Justin Beiber doing Delta blues. You’ll recognize the words and music, but any true feeling is bogged down by all the polish.

New In Theaters

Sleeping With the Past

Leave a comment

Both Sides of the Blade

by George Wolf

Claire Denis is an endlessly fascinating filmmaker. She might be working in horror (Trouble Every Day), sci-fi (High Life), documentaries (Toward Mathilde, Venice 70) or shorts (various), but Denis is always mining ways to subvert your expectations and probe her characters’ motives.

With Both Side of the Blade (originally titled Fire), Denis digs into the erotic drama landscape via the same game plan, crafting an abstract and often challenging narrative that’s built around a good ol’ love triangle.

Sara (Denis favorite Juliette Binoche) and Jean (Titane‘s Vincent Lindon) are longtime partners, and when the film opens they are wrapping up a vacation that seems to have been a wonderfully affectionate and often orgasmic time.

But back home, Sara catches a glimpse of her former lover Francois (Grégoire Colin) and is left shaken. Feelings are stirred even more by Jean’s new plan to start a business with Francois. The two men are also old friends, and Sara’s nearly decade-old decision to leave Francois for Jean seems like a wound long healed.

Well, that depends.

And as the past begins to fracture the couple’s present, Jean is also working to mend the relationship with his teenage son (Issa Perica) that was strained from Jean’s stint in prison years earlier.

But while all of the stakes may be easy enough to grasp, Denis and co-writer Christine Angot twist the personal interactions in intriguing ways. Denis doesn’t do sentimentality, but the film’s first two acts present character choices and dramatic histrionics that just don’t ring true unless we allow for some intimacies that will not be divulged.

Binoche and Lindon are astounding together, locking Sara and Jean into a conflict fueled by a battle with their own identities, as Colin provides the mysterious temptation always lurking on the periphery.

Why does Jean seem to be pushing his wife toward her former lover, only to burn with jealousy? Does Sara truly love either man, or only a version of herself that always seems out of reach?

It’s only in the final act that Denis moves away from pulling at the seams of this genre to let her actors deliver a finale rich with emotional honesty. Peace is finally made, and not only with the choices from Sara and Jean’s respective pasts. Challenges and complexities from the film’s earlier moments melt away, and Both Sides of the Blade becomes a moving and rewarding psychological study.

New In Theaters

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Leave a comment

Gone in the Night

by Brandon Thomas

Winona Ryder was arguably the queen of the late 80s/early 90s when it came to counter-culture or oddball movies. Beetlejuice, Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are all either bonafide classics or have become cult favorites in their own right. While the 2000s weren’t as kind to Ryder, her career came roaring back with the massive success of Stranger Things.

With Gone in the Night, Ryder makes her way back to the big screen in a film that might not make the same lasting impression as her earlier movies.

Kath (Ryder) and her boyfriend, Max (John Gallagher Jr. of 10 Cloverfield Lane and Hush) drive deep into the woods for a relaxing cabin getaway. Upon arrival, the two find that another couple, Greta (Brianne Tiu of Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer) and Al (Owen Teague of It: Chapter One and It: Chapter Two) have already moved in for the weekend.

After some tense back and forth, it’s decided that Kath and Max will stay for the night before heading home. After a night of board games, and light flirting, Kath turns in first. In the morning, Kath finds that both Max and Greta have disappeared. A seemingly distraught Al claims to have caught them hooking up during the night. As Kath tries to figure out why Max abruptly left, flashbacks begin to piece this muddled tale together. 

Director Eli Horowitz weaves a clever mystery that patiently moves through the past and present. The film’s climax isn’t dependent on opening a satisfying mystery box. No, it’s more about how the film tries to subvert expectations along the way – and not always to a rewarding conclusion. 

There’s an attempt to comment on mismatched partners in relationships with Kath and Max. These two couldn’t be further from the same page when it comes to what they want out of a relationship or what they want out of life. Even holding a conversation feels like a chore for them. The link between this theme and where the film eventually ends up is murky and never really comes together succinctly. 

The mix in tone is where Gone in the Night stumbles most explicitly. The film’s original title The Cow, telegraphs a much more subversive film than the neo-noirish thriller the new title hints at. The third act twist would be much more satisfying had the lead-up not been as sardonic. Even the character motivations feel tacked on and convoluted.

The cast handles the material much better than expected – although most of them feel adrift due to the tonal inconsistencies.

Ryder delivers a solid bedrock performance as the in-the-dark (pun fully intended) partner. It’s nice to see her as the lead in features again, and the actor continues to show that she never lost the capability to command the screen.

Gallagher Jr. offers another variation of the “bearded slacker” he’s been doing for the last five years. Despite the repetition, Gallagher is good at what he does. The standout is the always dependable Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Copycat). Mulroney brings his on-point, affable charm, but also infuses the performance with a hint of darkness to keep the audience on its toes.

Gone in the Night is a thriller that tries to offer up something new in a tried and true genre. Unfortunately, new doesn’t always mean good.

New In Theaters

Into the Woods

Leave a comment

The Deer King

by Matt Weiner

An empire torn apart by war. A fatal disease spread by wild attack dogs. A lone warrior who would do anything to protect his young cub. And the directorial debut of a legendary animator.

On paper, The Deer King has all the elements of a modern animated classic. And visually, there is plenty to admire in Masashi Ando’s first feature film, co-directed with Masayuki Miyaji and based on the fantasy novel by Nahoko Uehashi.

The story follows the exploits of Van (Shinichi Tsutsumi), the last surviving Lone Antler warrior. The battle heroics of this fierce group of fighters from the kingdom of Aquafa helped lead to an uneasy peace with their ruling empire, Zol. These two nationalities have enjoyed a decade of fragile co-existence that threatens to collapse with the resurgence of a deadly fever.

Ando is a giant in the animation world, having served as animation director for Hayao Miyazaki on Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, as well as on 2016’s wildly successful Your Name. That’s a lot of pressure for a feature debut when your resume includes some of the best of Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon and others.

On the animation side, at least, The Deer King succeeds. The sprawling epic fantasy offers up a lush world that takes great enjoyment in slowing down the action in favor of small details—iridescent grass, otherworldly hallucinations, the love between Van and his adopted daughter, Yuna (Hisui Kimura).

Too often though, The Deer King is a lot better looking than it is comprehensible. The pacing is admirable for allowing the relationship between Van and Yuna to take center stage, but it also compresses the action into some erratic plotting choices—things are surprisingly quiet for an epic realm facing down a genocidal epidemic.

At the same time, the film refuses to linger too long on the sort of world-building that makes diving into a new fantasy world so enjoyable, even with languid action. It falls to a mix of brief flashbacks and heavy-handed exposition to put all the pieces in play.

From the rebellious court machinations that may be playing a part in the disease to hints of the great wars between the two cultures, The Deer King shows occasional flashes of a wider world that would have been very much worth spending time on. It’s a testament to Ando and the work of his animators that there are enough moments of beauty to hang onto, though they never truly come together as a whole.

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Upstairs, Downstairs

1 Comment

Good Madam

by Hope Madden

There are so many things about Celine Sciamma’s masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire that stay with me. For example, the way men haunt the film without ever really being onscreen.

Director Jenna Cato Bass employs a similar strategy in her psychological thriller Good Madam, a film where white people are all but absent yet still suffocatingly present.

The South African film catches up with Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) and her daughter Winnie (Kamvalethu Jonas Raziya) on their way to see Tsidi’s mother (Nosipho Mtebe). Tsidi is not entirely welcome, not happy to be there, but here they are: mother, daughter and granddaughter sharing servants quarters in the home of a wealthy, dying white woman.

The film’s story has an unstructured authenticity about it, likely stemming from its improvisational storytelling (essentially everyone in the cast is credited for writing the film). Conversations ring true in ways that are sometimes touching, sometimes startling. Scenes rarely feel like breadcrumbs leading through the mystery inside this house, and yet, that’s what they are.

The film walks the line between political allegory and supernatural horror with ease, conjuring dread from the opening moments. Cato Bass twists that knife as Tsidi rails against her mother’s slavish devotion to the catatonic homeowner. Present meets recent past, all of it overshadowed by a long, horrifying South African history.

Cato Bass and her cast confront colonialism, both present and past, through the eyes of three generations. The film repurposes familiar images, often effectively, sometimes calling to mind Jordan Peele’s Get Out, among other genre fare.

Cosa’s performance is especially strong and unpredictable and she seems to transform physically from scene to scene to suit the character’s mood.

The ambiguities of the storyline can be as frustrating as they are refreshing, but Good Madam doesn’t waste your time. It’s a savvy, satisfying subversion of history and horror.

New In Theaters

Secret Garden

Leave a comment

Clara Sola

by Hope Madden

It’s rare for a film to tackle the difference between spirituality and religion with as much beauty and empathy as Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Costa Rican treasure, Clara Sola.

Clara (a remarkable Wendy Chinchilla Araya) is a middle-aged woman living with her mother and niece in a remote area of the country. Her closest friend is a white horse, Yuca, that the family lets to a neighbor each morning to use with tourists. When the neighbor hires a summer replacement named Santiago (Daniel Castañeda Rincón), something in Clara awakens.

Making her feature debut, Álvarez Mesén is already a master of showing without telling. Her film unveils Clara’s story moment by moment, but never feels deliberate. Using mainly nonactors gives Clara Sola a lived-in, authentic feel, while Sophie Windqvist’s camera and Ruben De Gheselle’s score immerse Clara and her family in something both natural and enchanting.

Chinchilla Araya, a dancer by trade, delivers an unaffected, unselfconscious performance you can’t look away from. Simultaneously delicate and fierce, it’s a turn perfectly suited to the magical realism the filmmaker develops.

Castañeda Rincón’s tenderness is forever surprising, and the two develop an easy but heartbreaking chemistry. Álvarez Mesén, who writes along with Maria Camila Arias, isn’t afraid to complicate characters—the kind of complexity rarely given to those in such a rural setting.

No one in Clara’s world is one-dimensional, nor is the filmmaker’s take on family. The love inside Clara’s house may be what feels most believable and sincere—and damaging. But what emerges is a clear look at the way spirituality is reined in and controlled by religion. Even clearer are the marks left by the women who enforce patriarchal order.

Clara Sola is an utterly gorgeous film unlike any other. It moves at its own pace, unnerves as it goes, and leaves you shaken but hopeful.

New In Theaters

Standing Her Ground

Leave a comment

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down

by George Wolf

If the title Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down immediately has you humming a certain Tom Petty tune, that’s fine. In fact, the way the film incorporates that and other hits, and music in general, is one of its many charms.

Giffords was an Arizona Congresswoman and a rising star in the Democratic party when she was shot in the head while meeting constituents in Jan. of 2011. Music therapy was pivotal to Giffords’s quest to regain her speech, and directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West are gifted with intimate home video footage that conveys the magnitude of her comeback story.

Giffords chances of surviving the gunshot were less than ten percent, and in fact her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, was at one point informed that his wife had died. But when Gabby fought back, Kelly was convinced she would one day want to look back on her journey, so he picked up a video camera.

There’s little doubt that Cohen and West (the Oscar-nominated RBG) have a healthy admiration for Giffords, but they make a pretty compelling case why the rest of us should be “Gab-ified,” too. Her courage, strength and determination cannot be denied.

Archival footage and interviews with fans (including former President Obama) outline Gabby’s transition from manager of the family’s Arizona tire store to fresh-faced Washington centrist. She’s nearly impossible to dislike, while her partnership with the space-traveling Kelly sends the all-American appeal into the stratosphere.

And when Cohen and West line up footage of Gabby’s brain surgery alongside her husband’s intricate space station docking maneuver, it’s game over and the feels have won.

So when the film transitions to the horrors of America’s gun violence epidemic, it seems at first like too much of a tonal clash. But as Kelly is elected to the Senate and Giffords focuses on her Gun Owners For Safety movement, it’s clear that the issue is just as much a part of Gabby as is the music she loves. Avoiding her current advocacy would result in an incomplete picture.

Don’t be fooled by the relentless positivity here. Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down isn’t simply a greatest hits mixtape made by fans for more fans. It’s a gritty story of survival, and of making a commitment to making a difference.

And the joy of jamming to the 80s. Can’t forget that one.