Kristofer Borgli’s previous comedy of social discomfort featuring a movie star, Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage, was hilarious and perhaps a little cruel, seeming to revel in the lack of grace afforded its dorky leading man. If anything, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) commits even more unforced errors when his fiancée Emma (Zendaya) makes the mistake of revealing her innermost secret to him (and, worse, two supposedly close friends). Yet while Borgli still digs into his characters’ grim insecurities and near-endless awkwardness, there’s something almost touching about their hapless paths away from and back toward each other. While Pattinson happily aids in the ongoing demystification of his star power, Zendaya, playing a character left seemingly off-kilter by the unexpected dissolution of her teenage anger and dysfunction, clarifies her own. As with Challengers, she brings simultaneous poise and aloofness to create an unconventional form of the 21st-century rom-com heroine. [Jesse Hassenger]
Baz Luhrmann’s companion documentary to his whirlwind 2022 biopic about the King puts an exclamation point on the filmmaker’s rhinestone-studded Elvis era. Compiled from long-thought-lost behind-the-scenes footage of Presley’s first Las Vegas residency, EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert let us revel in the singer’s boundless power in IMAX. But it’s not merely an opportunity to see him perform at his peak, but to watch him off stage, goofing with his band and getting charged up by their playing. This guy was more than hips. He loved making music with and for people, a connection that’s keenly felt thanks to this remarkable 35mm and 8mm footage, discovered by chance in some salt mines. What could’ve been a glorified DVD extra becomes so much more due to the quality of the footage. Luhrmann continues to find his maximalist muse in the singer, capturing the heat of “Burning Love,” the pain of “In The Ghetto,” and the power of “Suspicious Minds” with startling resolution and searing immediacy. Luhrmann’s Elvis was a spectacular expression of the sexual mania Elvis sent the country into. EPiC is the proof of his power, an overwhelming experience that crowns him King once again. [Matt Schimkowitz]
One of the best documentaries to come out of Sundance this year, Everybody To Kenmure Street hits all the harder because of its timing. Depicting the grassroots Scottish protest that prevented Home Office agents from leaving with the two Indian men they’d detained during a dawn raid on the first day of Eid, Felipe Bustos Sierra’s movie stitches together on-the-ground footage from phones and drones and news cameras to create a raucous and community-oriented film of resistance. Featuring interviews with many of the local protestors (most of whom were just the detainees’ neighbors who took umbrage to their abduction), the movie is charmingly unpretentious in its understanding of why anyone would want to stand up for a stranger down the block: It’s just the right thing to do. Throw in a few talented guest stars for the reenactments, and this is as crowdpleasing a true story as you get in the current political climate. [Jacob Oller]
Unrelenting violence writ large, The Furious is pure action movie goodness, relatively unburdened by things like plot, dialogue, acting, or themes. The bad guys are as bad as can be (child traffickers) and the good guys are out to save their loved ones; the stakes are clear and simple but the fights are fascinatingly complex. A supergroup of stunt guys, coordinators, and stars come together under the direction of longtime Donnie Yen choreographer Kenji Tanigaki, who adds in plenty of gonzo weapons (bicycles, ball-peen hammers, decanters) and baddies (a hulking strongman who seems to be literally unkillable). Each long set piece is an escalation, performed with staggering clarity and jaw-dropping athleticism until a final mind-boggling throwdown. It’s a total rush, as graceful and badass as any fight film from the last decade. [Jacob Oller]
Damian McCarthy’s haunting Hokum follows Adam Scott as a writer who finds himself in a horrifying mystery in an Irish hotel that unlocks parts of his past. With nightmarish visuals, jump scares galore, and an equally creepy score, McCarthy’s film sources all of the ingredients for a suspenseful thriller as his antihero solves the case of a missing young woman—and must live to tell the tale after he’s trapped in the old hotel with a possible witch. The Oddity director brings back his love of tchotchkes for clever set pieces to keep audiences in suspense, and a love of disturbing images (including a creepy rabbit character that hosts a warped kid’s TV show) jumping out of the dark to terrify his audience. Scott outdoes himself with a strikingly unlikable performance as a curmudgeon with a chip on his shoulder and an outsized guilt that unleashes memories and visions scarier than an old haunted hotel in the Irish countryside. [Monica Castillo]
The Ambriz brothers’ wildly creative stop-motion vision expands from a miniseries of scary stories to the pair’s first feature-length adventure. In I Am Frankelda, a young aspiring writer suffers the loss of her mother, a fellow artist, and rejection from peers and publishers alike before receiving an invitation from a prince to come with him to the land of ghosts and monsters. The result is an ambitious and imaginative animated movie that’s painstakingly crafted and delightfully human. The technically impressive movie uses hand-drawn 2D animation, oil paintings, and even expressionist figurines to branch out beyond its main approach. Many shots, especially details of dazzling costumes and features of creatures, will make you wonder how they pulled it off. With an engrossing story about defying monster-shaped naysayers and fighting for one’s artistic voice, I Am Frankelda becomes more than just a visual marvel that must be seen to be believed. [Monica Castillo]
With eye-catching costumes, sets bursting with lush color, and a funky soundtrack, Boots Riley’s satirical comedy takes on the fashion industry with a hyperbolic approach and a critical lens. In Riley’s follow-up to Sorry To Bother You and I’m A Virgo, a group of shoplifters band together to get back at a designer, but soon their plan is shaken up by a factory worker from China who wants revenge for all the damage the designer’s company has done to her and her family. Like Riley’s previous projects, I Love Boosters is an over-the-top, surreal movie with a socialist message—one that takes on the selfish people at the top who exploit workers, misinform the public, and prey on the proletariat. With a stellar cast that includes Keke Palmer, Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, and Demi Moore, Riley is never short on co-conspirators to help pull off his idiosyncratic vision. [Monica Castillo]
Maddie’s Secret is an impressive feature debut for multi-hyphenate John Early. He plays Maddie, an upbeat aspiring chef with a devoted best friend and boyfriend who encourages her to make videos of her original recipes, landing her an opportunity to do just that at the food-centric digital show where she works. But away from the public glare of social media, Maddie struggles with an eating disorder and the mounting pressure ahead of even bigger opportunities. Straddling the lines of camp and melodrama, Early’s film creates an overly earnest character who’s both silly yet serious when it comes to the dramatic parts of her story. In between the film’s dramatic twists and turns—which Maddie weathers with a can-do attitude—Early skewers the influencer economy, cooking shows, and therapy talk. There’s room enough for a few tears and lots of laughs in the clever comedy. [Monica Castillo]
Though it’ll surely be intimidating to those not accustomed to slow cinema, Magellan offers a perfect entrance point for those curious about settling in for a contemplative time: Gael García Bernal’s fantastic turn as blowhard explorer Ferdinand Magellan. His ultra-fallible performance, poking holes in a history book legend, is as refined as the stunning seafaring images captured by Lav Diaz. If you ever wanted Master And Commander to be a bit more like going to a museum—and to have some heartbreaking points to make about colonialism—this is a film well worth the time investment. [Jacob Oller]
On paper, Mother Mary sounds as audience-friendly as a Devil Wears Prada sequel: Anne Hathaway is Mother Mary, a beloved pop star who needs the perfect comeback dress from designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), the former bestie she brutally ditched 10 years ago. Yet director David Lowery is interested in something far more elliptical and metaphysical than mere music industry fantasia. Though the film’s tagline claims it’s neither a ghost story nor a love story, there are elements of both as Sam and Mary hash out the long-simmering tension between them—first in words, then in movement, then in witchy ceremonies that uncover a presence that’s been haunting them both. Like most of Lowery’s work, Mother Mary is as strange as it is sincere, defying easy one-to-one metaphors for a more sprawling reflection on inspiration, collaboration, creativity, and connection. It’s also the rare movie that reframes the classic hetero power dynamics of a muse/artist relationship into something divinely feminine. [Caroline Siede]
A coming-of-age story of rare insight, My Father’s Shadow makes the most of its two young leads. Real-life brothers Godwin and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo play the sons of absent Nigerian father Folarin (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù), who drops back into their life for a single impromptu daytrip to Lagos. Along the way, their thorny family relationships run headlong into the country’s tense political situation, while the scenes that make the most lasting impression are those that would naturally stick around in the memories of the kids themselves: Amusement park rides, ice cream, and moments of closeness on a beach. There’s magic to their father’s sudden reappearance and the speed with which he whisks the boys off on a quotidian adventure, and filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr. captures every ounce of it. [Jacob Oller]
Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie should not have worked. It shouldn’t have been made. Comedies are already in short supply, yet here’s an unmistakably Canadian spin-off of a Viceland TV show and early YouTube webseries that few have seen. Roughly two decades later, Matt (director and co-writer Matt Johnson) is still roping his best friend and bandmate Jay (co-writer and composer Jay McCarrol) into another plan to play Toronto rock club the Rivoli. This time, the scheme sends them right back to where they started, literally. Nirvanna is Back To The Future by way of The Tom Green Show, while executing the theories of the French New Wave. Again, it shouldn’t work, it shouldn’t be this funny, and it certainly shouldn’t elicit the kind of “How the hell did they make this?” reactions that are all too rare in the comedic arts. Yet, here’s a two-million-dollar film with better effects than The Mandalorian And Grogu inspiring a whole new cult of comedy fans, locking into a friendship-driven collaboration that only gets better with age. These two dummies were made for each other, and they were made for the big screen. [Matt Schimkowitz]
The little indie horror that could proves “be careful what you wish for” still scares quite a lot of audiences. Written and directed by Curry Barker, Obsession follows Bear (Michael Johnston) and his group of friends, including Nikki (Inde Navarrette), who Bear has long been crushing on. Unable to share his true feelings with her, he makes a wish on a novelty toy—that Nikki would love him more than anything else—and immediately, the friend he knew changes, becoming obsessed with Bear to an unhealthy, scary degree. Barker makes the jump from YouTube horror films to the big screen with an engrossing cautionary tale that’s rich in dark shadows, unnerving editing tricks, and its fair share of gore. It touched a nerve with audiences who came out in droves to see the relationship horror movie, breaking a few box office records in the process, but also letting Navarrette break out with her showstopping performance where she commits to some truly terrifying antics after her character is cursed. [Monica Castillo]
It sounds like a joke to refer to Pillion as gay BDSM-laden Bridget Jones’s Diary, but the best thing about British writer-director Harry Lighton’s debut feature is that it uses the kinky relationship at its center to do what romantic comedies have always done: explore the electric connections and quiet miscommunications that fuel the wild, weird experience of falling in love and finding yourself. The movie takes it as a given that a dom/sub partnership can be just as romantic and fulfilling as a conventional relationship. The question is whether this particular match is the right one for impossibly handsome biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and the timid barbershop quartet performer (Harry Melling) he sweeps off his feet and into a leather-clad queer community. Lighton is interested in the ways that lust and love can expand our worlds, but also in the ways they can seduce us away from what we actually want. Anchored by two tremendous performances, Pillion is funny, provocative, bittersweet, and beautiful, just as it is. [Caroline Siede]
Sorry, Steven Spielberg and Grogu, but the best on-screen alien of the year has got to be Rocky, the craggy spider puppet expertly providing comic relief and extraterrestrial pathos opposite Ryan Gosling. Project Hail Mary‘s balance of silliness and sci-fi is more skewed towards the former than in the first on-screen Andy Weir adaptation, but its odd-couple charms are hard to deny, especially considering how expertly they’re realized with a blend of practical and computer-generated effects. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller successfully wrangle a big budget, a flashback-heavy narrative, and a grand scope without losing their very specific sense of humor, which goes a long way with a blockbuster that plays to the cheap seats. [Jacob Oller]
Easily the most entertaining and stylish documentary of the year so far, Xander Robin’s The Python Hunt slithers into the Everglades with confidence and perspective. The film is less vicious than its name implies, following a crew of hunters descending upon the Sunshine State to help the government remove an invasive species of python ravaging the delicate ecosystem. With a mix of sumptuous night photography and eccentric participants, Robin finds humanity lingering in the swamp through the various reasons people join or don’t. One elderly firecracker just wants to kill something before she dies; others wish to reconnect with nature after years of living in the urban wilderness; another is a weathered outdoors writer, whose narration adds poetry to the brutality. But the crux of the documentary is how it shifts our understanding of what the hunt actually accomplishes. Is this really for the benefit of the imperiled Florida Everglades, or is it a cover to avoid harder conversations about urban expansion and climate change? Like the hunt itself, The Python Hunt is more than its delightfully ’90s graphics and kinetic cinematography. Those looking for the scaly underbelly of America will find what they’re looking for in The Python Hunt. [Matt Schimkowitz]
Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien aren’t delivering the kinds of performances that even get nominated for Golden Globes in Send Help, much less triumph at the Oscars—and it’s not as if they’re left stranded by either the material (which is, at its best, delicious in its playful wickedness) or the direction of Sam Raimi (which, same, maybe twice over). Even so, the work that McAdams does making the cartoony likes of harassed mid-level accountant Linda Liddle feel like a fully dimensional individual, in all of her dorkiness and machinations alike, is tremendous, and matched by O’Brien’s hilariously loathsome execu-bro, replete with a sniveling laugh and grunts of discomfort. That Raimi and his screenwriters don’t let the natural sympathies of these characters go unchallenged when they’re stranded together on an island is just another sign of what a ridiculously confident (and confidently ridiculous) thrill ride they’ve put together. [Jesse Hassenger]
They don’t make them like Daniel Roher’s Tuner anymore. It’s a well-written throwback drama that has a little bit of everything—high stakes, death, crime, romance—in a most unexpected setting. Tuner follows Niki (Leo Woodall), a piano tuner, as his mentor (Dustin Hoffman) becomes ill and falls behind on his bills. Because of Niki’s sensitivity to noise and a chance encounter with some self-proclaimed Robin Hoods, the lead falls in with a group of thieves robbing safes, but when it’s time to walk away, he finds out this shady group doesn’t let go easily. Roher, who is mostly known for documentaries like Navalny, takes to narrative fiction smoothly, immersing his audience in his hero’s experience and creatively using the soundscape to emphasize how differently it affects Niki as he struggles to do the right thing. Woodall shines in a reserved but poignant performance, proving himself leading man material. [Monica Castillo]
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