New In Theaters

The Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts

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by George Wolf

A nice mix of variety in this year’s live action nominees. You’ll find social commentary, cheeky parody, surprising comedy, warm humanity and a bitter cold look at the near future. As is the case every Oscar season, don’t miss the chance to catch the live action program on the big screen while you can.

The Singers

United States 18 mins. Director: Sam A. Davis Writer: Based on Ivan Turgenev short story from 1850

You’ve probably been to some bars that have dollar bills stapled all over the walls, right? Well, in this smoke-filled dive, one of those bills is C-note, and pestering from one bothersome barfly leads the bartender to set up a competition.

The best singer in the room gets free beer, plus that one hundred dollar bill! Surprises ensue.

The Singers is a completely delightful talent show that you wish would go on a bit longer than its 18 quick minutes.

A Friend of Dorothy

United Kingdom 21 mins. Writer/director: Lee Knight

An estate trustee (Stephen Fry) is ready to read the will of Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes) to two young men. Dorothy’s grandson Scott (Oscar Lloyd) is expecting a nice payout, and he doesn’t know why JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu) has also been invited.

Through flashbacks, we see the tender friendship that developed after JJ accidentally kicked a soccer ball into the 87 year-old widow’s garden.

The title may give you a clue about the lessons learned, and A Friend of Dorothy becomes a gently accessible reminder about kindness in a cruel world.

Butcher’s Stain

Israel 26 mins. Writer/director: Meyer Levinson-Blount

Samir (Omar Sameer) is a quiet, hard-working butcher in an Israeli grocery. He’s a talented and well-liked employee, but Samir’s manager (Rona Toledo) tells him there is a problem.

Someone has been tearing down the posters of Israeli hostages that hang in the break room. Another employee has reported that Samir is to blame.

In less than thirty minutes, filmmaker Meyer Levinson-Blount (who also plays a small role) crafts a timely and well-earned message about suspicion and rushes to judgment when complex issues are reduced to hot takes and social posts.

Two People Exchanging Saliva

France/U.S. 36mins. Writers/directors: Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh

Led by the perfectly detached narration from Vicky Kreips, we’re invited into a high-end department store in a strange, near-future world. Here, purchases are paid for with slaps across the face, and overall affection (specifically, kissing) is forbidden.

Through the strange attraction that develops between the well-to-do Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and a rookie salesgirl (Luana Bajrami), filmmakers Natalie Musteata and Alexandre craft an intoxicating take on class, intimacy, pleasure and risk.

This is probably the Oscar favorite.

Jane Austen’s Period Drama

United States 13 mins. Writers/directors: Julia Aks and Steve Pinder

With names like Mr. Dickley, Vagianna, Mrs. Bitts and Dr. Bangley, you can quickly guess where this parody of suppressed ribaldry and sexual ignorance is headed.

In 1800s England, Estrogenia Talbot (co-writer/co-director Julia Aks) is finally getting her long-awaited marriage proposal from Mr. Dickley (Ta’imua), when this Period Drama drops a dramatic period. Dickley mistakes the blood for a serious injury to Estrogenia, and the cheeky sendup of Austen is off and winking.

It’s more amusing than outright hilarious, but Austen fans should especially appreciate a sendup that respectfully pokes fun at some classics.

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

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.

New In Theaters

Diamond Life

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Crime 101

by George Wolf

I saw the fairly generic title, I saw the February release date, I saw the two hour and twenty minute run time, and I was less than excited about Crime 101.

Let me tell you how quickly it proved me wrong.

Writer/director Bart Layton and a cracking ensemble put a stylish, character-driven sheen on some familiar crime thriller tropes. What results is a tense and twisty ride that taps into a healthy amount of world weary anxiety.

Chris Hemsworth is Mike, a controlled and elusive master thief, dealing in diamonds and jewelry along the California coast. Mark Ruffalo’s Lou is a disgruntled and disheveled L.A. cop out to prove his theory of a lone wolf criminal. And Halle Berry is Sharon, a high-end insurance broker who deals in plenty of bling.

And long before their lives intersect, Layton (adapting Don Winslow’s novella) brings authenticity to the disillusion the three characters share. Each feels they’re grasping at something just out of reach, trying to live with certain ideals that have lost value. Lou’s refusal to put arrest quotas first does not make him popular at work, while Sharon feels her chance at a big promotion may be slipping away with age. And Mike is the classic criminal with a haunted past and moral code. In lesser hands, these all become empty cliches. But three standout performances and a sharp script pay character development dividends from the film’s opening minutes.

The supporting cast (featuring Corey Hawkins, Nick Nolte and a quick cameo from Jennifer Jason Leigh) is exceptional as well. Barry Keoghan is electric as a tightly wound hotshot out to move up to big league heists and Monica Barbaro brings sweet tenderness to Maya, who navigates a possible relationship with Mike through caution and curiosity.

Layton’s camera is patient – obviously, with this run time – but never aimless. Everything fuels our understanding of these characters, the city canvas where they operate, and the tension that builds for the looming showdown. Layton’s narrative misdirections are sly and subtle, aided stylistically by some nifty scene transitions and a vibrant, mysterious score from Blanck Mass.

You may recognize other crime thrillers (especially Michael Mann’s Heat) embedded in the film’s DNA, but Crime 101 feels especially in the moment. Since moving from television to features, Layton has shown a persistent interest in exploring the psyche behind audacious crimes.

And so far, he’s batting a thousand.

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

Baa Baa Baller

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GOAT

by George Wolf

I’m a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, so the name Steph Curry brings up one glorious memory, and plenty of forgettable ones.

But yes, fine, he is the game’s G.O.A.T. shooter and he seems like a good guy. And now he brings a bit of his own legend to the big screen as producer and supporting voice talent in GOAT, the story of a little sharpshooter with big dreams.

Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin from Stranger Things) is an undersized goat in Vineland who is a big fan of Roarball (“Regional Organized Animal Roarball”). It’s just like basketball, if basketball was played by gigantic animals on a shape shifting court.

Will loves ball, his hometown Vineland Thorns and their best player, Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union). But as great as Jett is, the Thorns have never won the Claw (championship) and are mired in another losing streak, much to the delight of arch rival Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), a trash-talking horse with an extensive grooming routine.

One day at the local playground, Mane is accepting court challenges from all comers, and Will steps up. He drains a few long range threes, the footage goes viral, and Thorns owner Flo (Jenifer Lewis) decides the little guy might be just what her team needs.

But how can Will prove himself if Jett and Coach Dennis (Patton Oswalt) won’t accept the league first “small” as part of the team and give him some playing time already?

Nick Kroll, David Harbour, Jennifer Hudson, and Nicola Coughlan join Curry as supporting voices, as first time directors Tyree Dillihay and Adam Rosette adapt the book “Funky Dunks” with a team of four writers and a narrative that finds some fun in the familiar.

Parents and grandparents will get one or two solid LOLs, plus some tried and true sports plotting seen in Major League, Semi-Pro, Bad News Bears and even the “dream big” mantra from last year’s Marty Supreme. It’s surface level, easily digestible stuff for the younger set, built with 3-D animation that’s more busy and colorful, less memorable.

GOAT‘s not exactly a championship contender, but it is a scrappy gamer, and should give young sports fans and pop culture first stringers some ninety odd minutes to hold their attention.

New In Theaters

My Big Fat Italian Rebound

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Solo Mio

by George Wolf

Where’s Jane Fonda? Sally Field? Michael Douglas? Morgan Freeman?

Nowhere to be found.

Ditto Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler, Andy Garcia or any of the more veteran stars we’ve seen in the formula that Solo Mio executes with some charming success.

Kevin James stars as Matt Taylor, an elementary school art teacher who is left at the altar by fiancée Heather (Julie Ann Emery) during a lavish excursion wedding in Italy (Heather must be making the big bucks.) The tours, packages and perks are all paid for, so Matt falls in with a travel group that quickly takes the lonesome loser under its wing.

Julian and Meghan (Kim Coates/Alyson Hannigan), Neil and Donna (Jonathan Roumie/Julee Cerda), a supportive concierge and various Italian children keep tabs on Matt during his picturesque cobblestone road to rebound.

The lovely Gia (Nicole Grimaudo) owns the local cafe, and it isn’t long before she becomes Matt’s “plus one” on the tour group outings, and his mood gradually perks up.

But can he really forget Heather so quickly? And what about that handsome Vincenzo (Gaincarlo Bartolomei), Gia’s former flame who keeps popping by the cafe?

James has this sad likable sack act down cold, Grimaudo is sweetly understated and the Coates/Hannigan pairing pays comedic dividends. Directors Charles and Daniel Kinnane take the script from their brothers John and Patrick (with help from James himself) and start checking off boxes that have become so familiar to their elders over the last several years.

Constant travel, no worries about jobs or money, and the chance at late-stage romance. It’s right out of the AARP fantasy film playbook, but this time we get the younger James (a spry 60!) who is cavorting through various hijinks at gorgeous locales, rubbing elbows with surprise celebrities and finding the spark to try love again.

And then just as your eyes are ready to roll, the film pulls out a cheeky twist that stops just short of being Nicolas Sparks-worthy. Instead of shameless, the late turn lands as more heartfelt and actually logical, helping Solo Mio leave you with satisfying aftertaste as the credits start to roll.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?