Tag Archives: Hope Madden

New In Theaters

I’m With the Band

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Paul McCartney: Man on the Run

by George Wolf

A seasoned filmmaker like Morgan Neville is smart enough to know that with Paul McCartney as your documentary subject, you gotta pick a lane and focus.

For Man of the Run, Neville picks a good one: how on Earth do you approach following up your stint in the most culturally significant band of all time?

Think about it. If you count Pete Best (first drummer), plus Stu Sutcliffe (original bassist) and even Jimmy Nicol (temporary tour replacement for a sick Ringo), they’ve been only seven souls in history who faced life as a “former Beatle.”

And McCartney is the most commercially successful, by far. Man on the Run takes us inside Paul’s strategy for that second act.

Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Piece by Piece, Steve! and the Oscar-winning 20 Feet From Stardom) keeps mainly to the ten year period after Paul’s first solo album in 1970 officially signaled the end of the Beatles. Using archival photos, videos, interview clips and animation, Neville plays with an engaging audio/visual style that often mirrors a mixed-media scrapbook.

He also keeps a tight reign on the time stamp, limiting more recent interview clips (from Mick Jagger, Chrissie Hynde, Paul’s adult kids and others) to audio only, so as not to break the immersive spell that keeps us close to McCartney’s head space at the time.

And we hear and see much from the man himself. His thoughts on forming Wings with first wife Linda are endearing and self-reflective. He was seeking to combat his crushing fame by surrounding himself with bandmates, but couldn’t completely quell the ego and drive that made many of them feel like mere sidemen.

Home movies from down on his farm are warm and loving, much like the sentiments on John Lennon and some very early days with the Fab Four.

And you’ll probably learn a thing or two you didn’t know about the infamous pot bust in Japan.

But above all, Man on the Run succeeds in its mission to reconsider an important decade in the life of an icon. We see a man seeking a new kind of contentment at home and on the run, making music that only became more impactful and influential as the bands played on.

In theaters 2/19 and on Prime Video 2/27.

New In Theaters

The Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

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by Hope Madden

The 2026 program of Oscar nominated animated shorts is characteristically brilliant. Artistic styles range from brushstrokes to stop motion to simple, hand-drawn animation and the tales told run an even wider gamut. Gorgeous, heartwarming, clever and endlessly watchable, the shorts celebrate the boundless talent and creativity in human artistry.

The Three Sisters

14 minutes, directed by Konstantin Bonzit

Konstantin Bonzit enlists spare but effective animation and no dialog at all to tell the most uproarious and delightful film of the lot. Three sisters life side by side by side on a tiny island until one day, a sole sailor docks looking for a place to stay. It’s a clever bit of fun, slyly told.

Forevergreen

13 minutes/ directed by Nathan Englehardt and Jeremy Spears

Stirring, gorgeous, dear, clever, joyous, heartbreaking, funny—Evergreen delivers it all, and in just 13 minutes. The story follows an orphaned bear cub who finds shelter and safety in the limbs of a loving evergreen tree. The animation is stunning, as is the film’s ability to draw so much emotion.

Retirement Plan

7 minutes, directed by John Kelly

Co-writer/director John Kelly (scripting with Tara Lawall) animates a clever, witty, delightful wish list from an unprepared middle-aged man (voiced to perfection by Domhnall Gleeson) listing all the things he will do once he’s retired and has the time. An utter joy.

Butterfly (Papillon)

15 minutes, directed by Florence Miailhe

The brushstroke painting technique Miailhe uses is such a perfect medium for this tale of the water. The animation flows and moves, as Alfred Nakache’s life swims before our eyes. His youth, afraid of the water. His adolescence, a remarkable swimmer. His young adulthood, an Algerian-born Jewish Olympian in 1936’s German games. Memories of love, loss, and survival, all told from the water, leave a stirring impression.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls

17 minutes; directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

This enchanting, almost spooky stop-motion tale sees a wealthy grandfather spinning the tale of his most precious possession to his curious granddaughter. His tale is of his youth of poverty, his love for a sorrowful girl, and the tears of pearls that she shed. The unforgettable animation and Colm Feore’s beautiful voicework make this an unforgettable fable.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films are presented in three separate feature-length programs (Live Action, Animated, Documentary) at theaters beginning this weekend.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Heartbroken Horror

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We’re looking at heartbreak in horror for Valentine’s Day! Not unrequited love turned to stalkerism, because that’s been done to death and it’s not romantic. But the heartbreak and longing of love and loneliness. And blood.

5. The Fly (1986)

It was not just David Cronenberg’s disturbed genius for images and ideas that madeThe Fly fly. It was the performance he drew from Jeff Goldblum.

Goldblum is an absolute gift to this film, so endearing in his pre-Brundlefly nerdiness. He’s the picture’s heartbeat, and it’s more than the fact that we like his character so much. The actor also performs heroically under all those prosthetics.

He and Geena Davis make the perfect pair, with their matching height and mullets, and their onscreen chemistry does give the film a level of human drama traditionally lacking from the Cronenberg canon. You root for Seth, and your heart breaks for him too.

4. Candyman (1992)

Has it really been Helen all along? Was she once, long ago, Daniel Robitaille’s forbidden lover? The reason for his suffering and murder?

Tony Todd makes Candyman a seductive, heartbroken phantasm with no choice but to shed blood to continue to exist. When he whispers to Helen, “Be my victim,” how could she say no?

3. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter James V. Hart mined Stoker’s text for as much romance and heartbreak as they could find, and if it wasn’t there, they made it up. The Count pines for his tragically lost love, crossing oceans of time for her. That, of course, leaves poor Jonathan heartbroken. But wait, there’s more! Because Lucy chooses Arthur, leaving Quincy and Dr. Jack both heartbroken, and then breaks Arthur’s heart with her own tragic death.

Coppola’s is the hottest, most gorgeous and heartbroken version of the ancient bloodsucker’s story you’re likely to find.

2. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro is a big ol’ softy. In many ways, that’s what makes Frankenstein a perfect property for him. His heart has always been with the monster, so why not tell the most heartbreaking and terrifying monster story?

Oscar Isaac is a marvel of angry arrogance made humble. As his creature, the long and limby Jacob Elordi offers a monster who’s more sensitive son than wounded manchild. The creature’s heartbreaking relationship with the eternally misunderstood Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is so full of tenderness and longing that the inevitable heartbreak crushes.

You don’t wander into a Guillermo del Toro film expecting less anything than glorious excess—another reason why Frankenstein and he were meant for one another.

1. May (2002)

Oh, May. Oh, Angela Bettis. No one – not even Sissy Spacek – captured the crushing awkwardness of trying to fit in when you are, deep down, cripplingly odd as well as Bettis.

Her May aches for a friend. Maybe even a lover? She has some heartbreaking trouble finding that in Adam (Jeremy Sisto) and Polly (Anna Faris – brilliant). But if you can’t find a friend, you might just have to make one.

Bettis’s performance is all awkward pauses, embarrassing gestures and longing. It’s beautiful, tender, sweet and – eventually – forgivably bloody. We love May.

Shudder Premiere

Must Be the Season

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The Last Sacrifice

by Hope Madden

Documentarian Rupert Russell has a pretty wild tale to tell, one set in an isolated British community where outsiders aren’t wanted, information is hard to come by, and something sinister waits in the fields.

And if that sounds like every British folk horror film from The Wicker Man in 1973 to Kill List in 2011, there’s a reason. Russell tracks the birth of British folk horror cinema to one specific moment and place in time: Cotswold District, Gloucestershire, England, Valentine’s Day, 1945.

On that day in that hamlet—an isolated farming community of about 200 people—Charles Walton was found dead, a pitchfork in his face and throat, a billhook in his neck. The murder shook the nation, its description taking on wild details over the retellings: a cross carved in his chest, dead frogs all around him. The crime so enthralled England that its most prized Scotland Yard detective, Robert Fabian, came to Cotswold to investigate.

What he found was a community unwilling to cooperate in the investigation, and the Rollright Stones, enormous ancient stones said to be what remains of an Iron Age King and his soldiers after a witch’s curse.

This is all fascinating enough, but Russell goes on to explore the genuine British witchcraft phenomenon of the Sixties and Seventies, and even brings in a Teletubby. What’s wildest about this documentary is the way that the old films—including the campiest Hammer greats The Devil Rides Out, The Witches, and Dracula A.D. 1972—are based directly from documentary footage of official witch rituals of the time.

The campier and more ridiculous the scene, the more exactly it recreates rituals celebrated by Alex Sanders, the era’s self-proclaimed King of the Witches.

Except that, of course, Sanders and his followers were harmless, and Hammer’s witches rarely were. But Sanders’s incredible popularity sparked new interest in the Cotswold murder and a whole, very British film genre was born.

The Last Sacrifice is sometimes clunky in its true crime format. It’s trying too hard to be scary. The approach doesn’t always suit the material, because the wild cinematic crossover with nonfiction is exponentially more interesting, and no crime was committed there. The information is revelatory for horror film fanatics, jaw-dropping, even. And certain details are downright funny.

Russell’s sometimes wobbly approach to the doc is hardly a reason to skip it. If you have any interest in British folk horror, The Last Sacrifice is a fascinating must-watch. (Give yourself the gift of a double feature, with Kier-La Janisse’s 2021 doc Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, also on Shudder.)

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Wuthering Heights, Crime 101, Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die, GOAT

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Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Wuthering Heights, Crime 101, Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die, GOAT, The Mortuary Assistant, Honey Bunch, Sweetness, and Misdirection

New In Theaters

How’s Your Bodice? Ripped?

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“Wuthering Heights”

by Hope Madden

Remember when people saw the teaser trailer for Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” and lost their minds? Everybody assumed Fennell had gotten in there and gone all Saltburn on the classic.

She sure did. Boy howdy, did she.

But let’s be honest, it’s a weird book about meanness and obsession and borderline incest and then outright incest. Plus, if you want a tame version there are about 100 other adaptations you can find. Let Fennell be Fennell.

Because she does it so well!

The film is gorgeous, and I don’t just mean the cast. Although there’s that. Margot Robbie is truly excellent as Cathy, spoiled and vulnerable and cruel and selfish to the core but consistently cheery about it.

And who smolders as well as Jacob Elordi? As Heathcliff, he’s first a scruffy, sad boy full of longing and later, a handsome sad man full of longing. This is absolutely Robbie’s show, but he offers very solid support and their chemistry is undeniable.

Hong Chau, fantastic as always, brings some bite and depth to a character who’s often a bit of a martyred throwaway. Likewise, Alison Oliver is a wild surprise as Isabella.

Fennell, credited with the screenplay, streamlines Emily Brontë’s epic, losing and combining characters wisely and essentially ending the film at the book’s halfway point. It feels very much like the story a teenage girl might have wished Brontë had written, but Fennell has the talent and the cast to make a really good movie out of what is essentially fan fiction.

The result is a dazzling, horny sight to see. The costumes, set design, framing, photography—all of it delivers a lush spectacle of the kind we now expect from the Saltburn director.

Wuthering Heights purists might scoff and Emily Brontë might blush, but for the rest of us, it’s hard to be mad at Emerald Fennell’s latest confection.

Outtakes

What Makes You Beautiful

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Sweetness

by Hope Madden

Back in 1982, German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt released The Fan, a horror thriller about a teenage girl obsessed with a pop music star. It’s a wild, weird, uncomfortable technopop ride, and I admit I expected (hoped?) Emma Higgins’s Sweetness would be a kind of American update.

Because The Fan is so very weird, yet somehow relatable.

Higgins’s film is very different, and a touch more on the believable side. Kate Hallett (Women Talking) is Rylee, unpopular high school kid with an obsessive crush on Floorplan lead singer Payton Adler (Herman Tømmeraas). His pouty pretty face covers nearly every inch of her bedroom walls and ceiling. Her headphones are always in, his emotional vocals drowning out the mean girls in class, her father’s overly eager girlfriend (Amanda Brugel), and everything else Rylee doesn’t want to hear.

When bestie Sidney (Aya Furukawa, Fall of the House of Usher) leaves Rylee behind after a Floorplan concert, she meanders alone until being struck by a car driven by the very impaired object of her affection, Payton Adler!

Totally worth it!

What follows is a crooked path lined with the faulty logic of the young and the twisted imagination of a filmmaker who’s spent most of her career embedded with pop stars. Higgins has directed scads of music videos. That’s probably why the music for this film is so unnervingly authentic, exactly the kind of thing that would make a troubled teen swoon and believe her life had been saved.

Even if she’d, in fact, just been run down by a car.

Furukawa and Tømmeraas both shine, one as a semi-vacuous but still good friend, the other as a good-looking opportunist with a drug problem.

Hallett anchors the film with a sort of wide-eyed yet world wearied performance that’s as heartbreaking as it is frustrating.

Higgins never laughs at or Rylee and her youthful obsession. Though the movie doesn’t wallow in the maudlin, avoiding angst at all possible turns, the filmmaker demands that we empathize with this girl in a way that’s both moving and nightmarish.

Stylish cinematography and slick production design emphasize the pop music stylings, but the film is hardly all glossy exterior.

There are some telegraphed moments and a couple of convenient contrivances, and anybody seriously shocked by Rylee’s choices definitely needs to see The Fan. But there’s a twisted, broken little heart here and Higgins and Hallett want you to witness it.

New In Theaters

Game Over

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The Mortuary Assistant

by Hope Madden

Director Jeremiah Kipp hits the exact right tone as he opens his latest feature, The Mortuary Assistant. Based on the popular video game, the film follows Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland) through her first night on her own at the mortuary.

Before she can fly unaccompanied, she completes her first solo autopsy, as the mortician (Paul Sparks) watches. The scenes are clinical, filmed in close-up, Kipp manufacturing the best combination of mundane and macabre.

Soon enough, Rebecca will begin her first overnight shift, and the clients are not your run of the mill cadavers.

Kipp, working from a script by Tracee Beebe, finds organic ways to give Rebecca a backstory. Flashbacks are not intrusive until they need to be, as the film warps that history into another way to really ruin Rebecca’s first night on the job.

John Adams figures into Rebecca’s past. He’s a perfect choice for a loving dad and for what that pesky demon haunting the mortuary has planned for her.

Holland’s great in a tough role. Rebecca carries probably 90% of the film, much of that screentime spent alone or with a lifeless (?) corpse. It’s an internal character, not an extrovert or the type who talks to herself, and the actor impresses, commanding attention and driving action.

Bebee’s script adds some depth to the game storyline as well, using Rebecca’s backstory to develop a theme of addiction that suits the horror and helps to explain Rebecca’s connection to events.

Sparks delivers an enjoyable performance, stiff and weird as you might expect from a mortician, certainly from this particular mortician. Supporting turns from the small ensemble (Keena Ferguson Frasier and Emily Bennett, in particular) elevate emotion, whether that emotion is heartbreak, fear, or revulsion.

Plus that demon is freaky.

Frequent gamers may be able to make more sense of the actual mythology—possession, demonic bindings, the minutia of morgue work. Still, The Mortuary Assistant transcends the issues that usually plague big screen game adaptations and delivers fun, creepy demonic horror.

New In Theaters

Let’s Do the Time Loop Again

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Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

by Hope Madden

Say Sam Rockwell, ragged clothes under homemade explosives and draped in clear plastic, walks into the late-night diner where you’re eating and claims to be from the future. I mean, if anybody’s going to do it, it’ll be Sam Rockwell.

The reliably loose cannon stars in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, director Gore Verbinski’s first film since 2016’s regrettable A Cure for Wellness. The sci-fi time loop fantasy sees Rockwell as a man on a mission: find the little boy whose AI is going to destroy the world and keep him from finishing it. But it will take the perfect mix of people to help him, and he knows those people are here, in this diner, on this night.

He knows about certain groupings that are not the saviors because he’s tried this exact thing many times already. Many, many times. But he’s got a weird feeling about tonight’s recruits: an unhappily married teacher couple (Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña), a mousy woman sitting alone (Juno Temple), a woman who just wanted to relax with some pie (Georgia Goodman), a tough guy (Asim Chaudhry), and a Goth princess (Haley Lu Richardson).

Matthew Robinson’s script spins each recruit’s backstory with its own little chapter—because chapters are a really popular cinematic device right now—gives us not only a bit of intel on the character, but also some context.

Robinson’s greatest achievement is the alarming mix of gallows humor and rainbow colored confetti. His characters race against the clock, video game like, to beat level after level of difficulties before finally entering the final layer—well, Sam’s never made it this far, so who knows what’s in there?

And don’t start guessing because that basically guarantees the form of your doom. At least don’t think about Mr. Sta Puft.

Speaking of Bill Murray, the film owes as much to Groundhog Day as it does Terminator, and that’s a heady mix. The imaginative side plots and character arcs feel wild and random, but the script is actually built quite solidly.

And the theme—that AI cannot help but ruin human existence—may not be new, but it’s truer than ever. Thankfully, Verbinski, along with his game cast and writer, recognizes the bitter, cynical  humor in the fact that this hero is probably already too late. But hey, at least he can blow himself up and start over.

New In Theaters

Lips Together and Blow

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Whistle

by Hope Madden

Wish Upon. Polaroid. Talk to Me. Ouija. Choose or Die. The “gang of youngsters stumble across a cursed object to everyone’s peril” subgenre is alive and thriving.

But hey, Talk to Me was good.

Corin Hardy’s Whistle isn’t particularly good. It is incredibly formulaic, with mainly one-dimensional characters forever making unlikely choices because the plot requires that they do. It’s shot quite well, though.

Dafne Keen (Logan) just moved in with her cousin after some terrible mishaps. Her first day in the new high school, she opens her locker—vacated by a basketball star who inexplicably died recently—and finds some kind of creepy, ancient looking skull whistle.

Any number of ridiculous contrivances later, and a group of high school cliches—the burnout (Keen), the smart girl (Sophie Nélisse), the drunken asshole jock (Jhaleil Swaby), his hot girlfriend (Ali Skovbye), and the comic book nerd (Sky Yang)—have to battle death as conjured by that creepy whistle.

Yes, writer Owen Egerton mashes some Final Destination whatnot in with the other familiar beats. Don’t expect that franchise’s Rube Goldberg style kills, but Hardy does bring some blood and gore, as promised by that R rating.

The curse itself does feel somewhat fresh. The death stalking each victim is their own natural death, just come early. Why their own death would want to creep around, chasing and terrifying their still-alive selves for days beforehand is a bit of a mystery.

Percy Hynes White stands out as a new twist on the neighborhood drug dealer, and Nick Frost is fun as a teacher who likes to hand out detentions. Truthfully, most of the cast does solid work, impressive given the uninspired script. James is particularly hamstrung with the most boilerplate character among them.

Keen struggles, too, delivering a one-note melancholy character that never feels authentic.

There is fun to be had here and there, especially at the Harvest Festival. One basketball player goes in costume as Teen Wolf without mention, and another unnamed werewolf character is a treat. The whole festival setting is filmed beautifully and reminds you that Hardy has some skill.

Not enough to elevate this script to something worth watching, though.