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Metal Mama

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The Wild Robot

by Hope Madden

With wry, almost gallows humor, visual panache and an impressive voice cast, co-writer/director Chris (How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch) Sanders’s The Wild Robot nails the aching beauty of parenthood like few other films have.

Adapted from Peter Brown’s gorgeously illustrated middle grades novel, the film drops us and ROZZUM unit 7134 on an island uninhabited by humans. This makes it tough for “Roz” (Lupita Nyong’o) to fulfill her mission of completing a task, any task. But then an undersized gosling (Kit Connor) imprints on her, allowing Sanders to have some fun with the unending complications associated with Roz’s new task: parenting.

The writing and the delicately lovely animation work together to hypnotic effect, each unveiling something more human with every scene, regardless of the fact that there’s nary a human in the movie. Sanders’s script reflects the human experience, both the timeless (the thankless heartbreak of investing your whole heart and soul into the process of successfully losing your child to their own future) and the immediate (AI, corporate greed, tech overlords).

A talented cast deepens the film’s effect. Nyong’o effortlessly treads the line between logic and longing with so graceful a character arc that you can feel Roz blossoming. Pedro Pascal joins her as Fink, the fox who hates to admit that he wants to be part of this little family unit more than anything.

Catherine O’Hara—always a treasure—delivers dry wisdom in hilarious doses. Meanwhile, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Bill Nighy bring endearing personalities to their furry and feathered characters, while Stephanie Hsu injects Act 3 with a little wicked humor.

The film’s delight is only deepened by its sadness, and you may find yourself bawling repeatedly during this film. I know I did.

Sanders’s career is marked with the vulnerable optimism that defines an outsider’s longing for connection. In his worlds, a parent and their sort-of child—Lilo and Stitch, Hiccup and Toothless, Roz and Brightbill—flail and flounder until they find the strength of an extended family.

It’s a story he’s apparently not done telling. But he tells it so very well.

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Silence Is Golden

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Azrael

by Hope Madden

Last year, Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You told a fully developed alien invasion story with a single line of dialogue. In 2013, J.C. Chandor created a breathless, satisfying adventure yarn without one word with All Is Lost.

A little more than midway through the post-apocalyptic horror Azrael, director E. L. Katz (working from a script by Simon Barrett) introduces the first speaking character. It’s a cagey move, and one that solidifies the filmmakers’ ability to clarify not just an immediate situation but an entire mythology without a single comprehensible syllable spoken.

Our signposts are three separate cryptic prophesies scrawled across the screen. Other than that, we witness a world left behind. Our tale is set many years after the Rapture. Alone in a woods, one woman (Samara Weaving, Ready or Not) finds beauty in nature. As she brings a gift to her lover (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Femme), they recognize a bird call and flee.

Because that was definitely not a bird.

Anyone who’s followed Weaving’s career knows she’s up for some relentless, bloody action. She has her fill of it here, battling a left-behind cult as well as bloody thirsty, flesh bound demons. She’s so expressive that the character never feels limited without lines.

The balance of the ensemble is also up to the task at hand—Katariina Unt and Eero Milonoff (of the amazing Border) leave a particular impression.

So do the demons, which come across like char broiled crawlers from The Descent. Nice!

Katz hit out-the-gate with his feature debut, Cheap Thrills. Barrett has been hit or miss, but his hits have soared, You’re Next and The Guest among them. What they fully understand is how to develop tension, how to direct your attention, and how to use the camera to tell attentive audiences all they need to know.

There’s nuance and depth for those who invest, but at 85 minutes and boasting almost constant action and bloodshed, Azrael is a solid choice for even those with a limited attention span.

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Pleased to Meet Me

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My Old Ass

by George Wolf

If the assignment was to write a letter to your younger self, keeping in mind the painful mistakes you’d like to erase while illustrating John Lennon’s classic line “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans” and peppering in some R-rated laughs, then writer/director Megan Park absolutely aced it.

My Old Ass is all of that and more, a smart, funny and surprisingly emotional comedic fantasy that ranks with the best coming-of-age films of the last several years.

In a breakout big screen debut, Maisy Stella (from TV’s Nashville) is completely captivating as Elliot, a restless just-turned-18-year-old more than ready to leave her family’s cranberry farm in rural Canada for the University of Toronto in just 22 days.

But after a wild and hazy birthday party with her besties, Elliot gets an unexpected visit from an old new friend: her 39 year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). It takes some unique convincing, but eventually Elliot has questions…and some weird requests. Her old ass has answers, thoughtful advice and one stern warning.

“Avoid. Anyone. Named. Chad.”

“Chad?”

Enter Chad (Percy Hynes White).

Three years removed from her standout filmmaking debut The Fallout, Park lightens the mood via a charmingly fantastical premise, but keeps the film grounded with a refreshing and authentic voice. There’s so much honesty here about appreciating the journey to finding yourself, and it’s all perfectly fleshed out by the contrast of Plaza’s jaded deadpans and Stella’s enthusiastic naiveté.

Yes, life is about having the courage to make mistakes and find out what and who you really want, but it still wouldn’t hurt to be a little nicer to your brother. One day you’ll appreciate the memory.

Not one moment of either performance feels false, a testament to Stella, Plaza and to the strength of Park’s script and directing vision. While none of the sentiments here may be new or even especially profound, give in to the slightly Twilight Zone setup and the way My Old Ass delivers its life lessons might just knock you on yours.

And bring tissues. You’ll need them for more than just cushion when you land.

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You’ve Got a Friend in Me

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Will & Harper

by Hope Madden

Harper Steele loved traveling America and spent years upon years hitchhiking and driving from town to town, dive bar to dive bar, stock car race to pool hall to backwater, savoring every minute of it. But since she transitioned a couple of years ago, she’s afraid to do it anymore. She’s afraid to travel these roads in the same way any woman would be, and she’s afraid to travel them in the way that only a trans woman would be.

Her friend thinks maybe she can reexplore the country she loves as her true self if she has a man with her. Preferably a big, lumbering, lovable, friendly, famous friend willing to shift attention away from her whenever she might want him to. All she has to do is agree to go to stop at least once so Will Ferrell can get a traditional glazed at Dunkin Donuts.

There are so many reasons to watch Will & Harper, not the least of which is to see two of the smartest comedic minds (the two met on SNL when Steele was head writer for the show) riff.

And it’s not just the two of them. Their trip leads to run ins with some great SNL alum and a reminder that Kristin Wiig is insanely talented.

Another great reason to watch Will & Harper is that this film fits so beautifully into that American cinematic tradition of emotional, thrilling, deeply human road picture: one relationship changes and deepens with the landscape as America itself is more clearly revealed.

Because Steele’s America is not what anyone would consider a safe space for trans people—but where, really, is that space?

The friends begin in NYC with an SNL reunion and an awkward-at-best hug from Lorne Michaels. At a Pacers game, Indiana governor Eric Holcomb is eager to meet Ferrell, and it isn’t until a little googling after the photo op that he and Harper learn about the Republican politician’s aggressively anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ2+ policies. The scene leads to the first of many brazenly honest and emotional moments between the friends.

Ferrell’s tenderness and endearingly bumbling protectiveness is deeply lovely, even when—maybe especially when—it’s almost desperate. The deeper into red state territory the two travel, the more attention seeking Ferrell seems, almost certainly to try to create a protective shield around his friend. It doesn’t always work, and his own grief at his shortcomings as her friend are heartbreakingly lovely.

But it’s Steele whose openness and forthrightness breaks any but the coldest and most ignorant heart. And what she does—she and her buddy—that’s so important is to show how utterly and undeniably normal it all is: hating the way you look in a bathing suit, wanting and failing to love the sound of your own voice, wondering what it’s like to have boobs for the first time.

Will & Harper just makes you wonder how it can be possible for anyone to be upset by another person’s transition. It also makes you hope those who feel too stigmatized to do it realize that there is a better life.

“From the moment I transitioned, all I wanted to do was live.”

God I hope people see this movie.

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Smooth Operators

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Wolfs

by George Wolf (no relation)

Watch the trailer for Wolfs, and you hear Sinatra front and center.

But watch the movie, and it’s Sade time, baby.

I get that the Apple marketing department wants you to remember the fun of Clooney and Pitt’s Ocean’s Eleven franchise, but this new venture crafts its effective charm from a more seedy vibe.

New York D.A. Margaret (Amy Ryan) has a problem. She’s covered with blood in a swanky hotel with a much younger man (Austin Abrams), and he’s half naked on the floor with no pulse.

Plus, that’s a lot of drugs.

Margaret calls a fixer (Clooney), who promises to make it all go away. But it’s Pam (Frances McDormand) running the hotel and she has her own man (Pitt), who shows up with identical claims of problem solving.

The rival lone wolves have no intention of teaming up, but fate has other ideas. So it’s going to be a long and bumpy night.

Years before Reynolds and Jackman started their good natured ribbing, Clooney and Pitt owned the “fun frenemy” schtick, and writer/director Jon Watts reminds us that their charisma still has plenty of life.

The deadpan sparring is a mischievous hoot, as Margaret’s Man and Pam’s Man each strive to be too cool for competition while secretly pining for the other’s respect. Watts (Cop Car, the Spider-Man “Home” franchise, TV’s The Old Man) creates a nice counterbalance via the uncool “Kid” (Abrams is terrific) and backs up the snappy dialog with understated visual gags (one Man slowly peering around the corner at embarrassing moments) and some pieces of stylish, well-staged action.

There’s a winning air of confidence to the film, and it’s not just from two A-listers secure in their movie star status. Wolfs isn’t trying to re-invent any genres, but Watts displays plenty of skill with plot twisty intrigue.

These fixers aren’t leading a team of good-hearted thieves, robbing people who probably deserve it and righting old wrongs. Yes, they’re still unreasonably handsome, but they are shady characters with bloody pasts and clearly compromised moral codes. They are interesting, in a Tarantino sort of way.

And they are in one helluva mess. How dirty will they have to get to clean it up?

You may be surprised. Just don’t expect Vegas, and you’ll be entertained.

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Photo Sensitive

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Lee

by Hope Madden

Kate Winslet can hold her breath for 7 minutes and 15 seconds. That’s just one of many astonishing things about the 7-time Oscar nominee (and one-time winner), and it speaks to something she appears to seek in characters: badassedness.

And with her latest character, there’s no denying those bona fides. Winslet plays WWII photojournalist and all-around badass Lee Miller in Ellen Kuras’s biopic, Lee.

The film opens and closes on an interview between an aged Miller and a young man (Josh O’Connor, Challengers). This allows Winslet to provide a bit of voiceover as the film meanders through just a slice of Miller’s remarkable life, beginning with the day she met her husband, Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) at a garden party full of poets and painters in 1937—just two years shy of the beginning of WWII.

And though Miller’s life had already contained more than enough intrigue, adventure and invention for at least one film, there’s a reason Kuras (working from Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee’s adaption of Antony Penrose’s biography) began the story here. Miller’s work as a war correspondent and photographer is as breathtaking and heroic as anything you’re likely to see.

Kuras spent most of her career behind the camera in the role of cinematographer, collaborating with the likes of Michel Gondry, Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch. Appropriately, you see every ounce of that experience with her first feature length narrative as director, working with DP Pawel Edelman. Kuras’s admiration for Miller’s work clearly influences her own shot making, just as a respect for Miller’s unapologetic confidence colors her approach to the storytelling.

Winslet’s wonderful, obviously—full of bravado and rage, vulnerability and impatience. The ensemble around her, mostly in fairly small roles, impresses as well. Andrea Riseborough and Andy Samberg are particular standouts.

Where Lee falls short is in its too-traditional execution, which feels out of step with the way Kuras elsewhere embraces Miller’s renegade spirit. The cinematic interview bookends, exposition-heavy narration, glossy look and conventional score feel at odds with the protagonist’s character.

Lee Miller deserved a gustier film. Lee is not a bad movie. It’s a very competently made, beautifully shot picture boasting very solid performances. It’s worth seeing. It’s just not as memorable as it ought to be.

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Enter Sandman

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Sleep

by Hope Madden

“Marriage is about tackling problems together.”

So says the hand-carved display in the small but cozy living room of Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) and Soo-jin’s (Jung Yu-mi) apartment. What the struggling actor and his rising executive/very pregnant wife don’t know yet is that they’re about to have a hell of a problem to tackle.

Writer/director Jason Yu’s Sleep is a smartly scripted, playfully wearying horror with tension rooted firmly in how very much you like Hyun-su and Soo-jin.

At some point in Soo-jin’s ninth month, Hyun-su begins to talk in his sleep.

“Something’s inside.”

And then he walks in his sleep. Eats. Claws at his face. This, obviously, becomes somewhat frightening, but the couple aims to tackle this thing together. Of course, soon enough there will be three of them.

Yu slowly cranks up tension as Soo-jin struggles between a maternal desire to protect her baby and a deep-rooted commitment to working through every marital problem with her husband.

One of the anxieties Yu toys with is that bone-deep exhaustion of a new parent, amplified for Soo-jin by her wakeful watch to make sure her husband doesn’t do harm to the baby in his sleep. You’re exhausted for her, and when she seems to start making rash, even insane decisions, well, who could blame her?

The way Yu manipulates tone is a thing of wonder. The more desperate and bleary eyed the film becomes, the funnier it is, and that dark humor is both at home and wildly startling. But there is a sweetness to it, and a camaraderie between Jung and Lee (who died tragically last year) that insists on your investment in the outcome of their story.

The third act is almost brazenly unhinged, and Sleep is all the better for it. It’s a tricky tale meticulously crafted, but it has a sweetness at its heart and that’s what makes it memorable.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Speak No Evil, The Killer’s Game, The 4:30 Movie & More

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Speak No Evil, The Killer’s Game, The 4:30 Movie, Close Your Eyes, Booger, One Fast Move, Subservience, Wineville

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Quiet, Please

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Speak No Evil

by Hope Madden

Speak No Evil is in a tough spot. Essentially, you’re either a moviegoer who will breathe easier this weekend knowing you’ll never again have to sit through the excruciating trailer, you’re a potentially interested horror fan, or you’re a horror fanatic wary that director James Watkins will pull punches landed by Christian Tafdrup’s  almost unwatchably grim but genuinely terrifying 2022 original.

Well, Watkins does not pull those punches, but they do land differently.

Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) are vacationing blandly in Italy with their 11-year-old, Agnes (Alix West Lefler) when a louder, more alive family catches Ben’s attention.

Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their quiet lad Ant (Dan Hough) seem to be living life large, and Ben can’t help but envy that. So, after the Daltons are tucked blandly back into their London flat and he receives a postcard from their vacation pals inviting them out to the countryside, how can he say no?

We all know he should have said no, but that’s not how horror movies happen.

What follows is a horror of manners, and very few genres are more agonizing than that. Little by little by little, alone and very far from civilization, the Daltons’ polite respectability is jostled and clawed and eventually, of course, gutted.

Those familiar with Watkins’s work, especially his remarkable and remarkably unpleasant Eden Lake, needn’t worry that he’ll let you off the hook. This is not the sanitized English language version fans of the original feared.

Indeed, Watkins and a game cast highlighted by a feral McAvoy stick to Tafdrup’s script for better than half of the film. Watkins, who adapted the original script, complicates relationships and gives the visiting Dalton parents more backbone, but he doesn’t neuter the grim story being told. Instead, he ratches up tension, provides a more coherent backstory, and pulls out the big guns in Act 3.

If you’ve seen the original, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the direction the remake takes. Though it can feel like a correction aimed at pleasing a wider audience, it also makes for a more satisfying film.

Fanciosi is carving out a career of wonderfully nuanced genre performances (Nightingale, Stopmotion). We learned in 2017 with Split that McAvoy can do anything. Anything at all. He proves that here with a ferocious turn, evoking vulnerability and contempt sometimes in the same moment. It’s a compelling beast he creates, and no wonder weary travelers fall under his spell.

Watkins doesn’t make enough movies. For his latest he’s chosen a project with the narrowest chance of success. But here’s hoping he finds it.

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Stardust Memories

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Close Your Eyes

by George Wolf

Thirty-two years later, Spanish auteur Víctor Erice returns with his fourth feature, Close Your Eyes (Cerrar los ojos), a patiently exquisite study of memory, identity, and the reflecting power of film.

Former film director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) spends his days in a fishing village on the coast of Spain. He reads, writes the occasional short story, and dodges the conspiracy theories that still exist about his old friend Julio Arenas (Jose Coronado).

In 1990, Julio was starring in Miguel’s film The Farewell Gaze when he disappeared without a trace. The mystery is being revisited on TV’s “Unresolved Cases,” and Miguel travels to Madrid for his guest appearance.

The broadcast prompts a call from a woman from an elder care home in another Spanish village. There is a handyman they call Gardel who tends the grounds and keeps to himself. She is sure it is Julio.

Miguel must confirm this for himself, and the journey back through his past includes reconnecting with his film editor (Mario Pardo), a former lover (Soledad Villamil), Julio’s daughter (Ana Torrent), and one painful, tragic memory.

Erice (El Sur, The Spirit of the Beehive) sets a pace that is unhurried but necessary, and he fills the nearly three-hour running time with exquisite shot making, insightful dialog and meaningful silences. He also crafts the film-within-a-film as a compelling narrative in its own right, one that adds important elements to the touching and deeply resonant finale.

Now in his mid-eighties, Erice makes Close Your Eyes more than just a rumination on “how to grow old.” Expertly assembled and deceptively understated, it is a beautiful ode to the pleasure, pain, friendships and memories of a life well lived.