Aurelia Butler

The matriarch of a family ends up demon-possessed in this blood-drenched entry in the long-running horror franchise.The horror movie, a genre known for sparsely populated locales like cabins in the woods and outer space, has been spending more time in the city.Some of the most creative scary movies of the past decade have taken place in an abandoned Detroit (“Barbarian,” “Don’t Breathe,” “It Follows”). In the recent “Scream,” Ghostface moved from the suburbs to the subway. And now the latest entry in the “Evil Dead” franchise spills swimming pools of blood mostly inside a dilapidated high-rise apartment in Los Angeles.One might explain the rise of urban horror as working on fears rooted in rising crime or the pandemic’s emptying out of downtowns, but that focuses more on content than form. And the pumping heart of the “Evil Dead” movies has never been ideas, but aesthetics. Sam Raimi’s original trilogy made stylish Grand Guignol gore that evoked Jean-Luc Godard’s response to a question about why he used so much blood. “Not blood,” he corrected. “Red.”Lee Cronin, who directed “Evil Dead Rise” with many more colors of bodily fluid, is a meticulous creator of stunning shots. His camera doesn’t move. It dances, shifting, spinning, occasionally knocked on its side like a running back in a collision. He avoids clichés like a face suddenly appearing in a mirror but finds new ways to scare with the reflection of an image. And the way he mixes the foreground and background is pleasingly disorienting. For him, clearly, the city offers a new palette. He does wonders with the warped view through a keyhole of an apartment. The trees that come alive and tie down victims in the original “Evil Dead” are replaced by rusty and aggressive wires from a rickety elevator.As for the plot, who cares? As with every “Evil Dead,” a creepy book is found and demonic hell breaks loose. That’s all that matters. This time, the characters are not a group of friends but a family, including a tattoo-artist mother, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), her kids (Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher) and their chain saw-wielding aunt (Lily Sullivan). But this shift also doesn’t make that much of a difference. There are so many horror movies these days that dig deeper into the anxieties and fears of family and motherhood; though still, bravo to whoever came up with the tagline: “Mommy loves you to death.”Character and story are secondary to an atmosphere of industrial gloom, clanking heaters, ambient neighbor noise and the clutter of families cramped together. There is a spectacular new monster at the end, and the most disturbing set pieces involve ordinary household objects like (gulp) a cheese grater.The previous “Evil Dead” movie from a decade ago was a more direct reboot, while this one pays homage to the past, but not too much. It opens with the signature shot of the franchise, a racing camera, low to the ground, but this sets up not a scare, but a joke — one I won’t ruin, but that pokes fun at the original, breaks the fourth wall and announces a new day. And yet, with a few exceptions, largely from the performance of Sutherland, who captures some of the borscht belt swagger of Freddy Krueger, it’s the last moment of arch comedy.With the original “Evil Dead” and particularly its sequel, Raimi didn’t just make splatter beautiful. He proved it could be hilarious. The two recent movies are far more grim. Even though there is an inherent absurdity to the excess on display, they seem less interested in the humor of horror. The absence of Bruce Campbell, the hammy protagonist of the original trilogy, is felt. Scary villains are a dime a dozen, but a funny hero? They’re hard to come by.Evil Dead RiseRated R for elevators of blood and sharp objects near eyeballs. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

The choreographer is trying his hand at filmmaking with an experiment that merges drama, dance and music.PARIS — Benjamin Millepied probably didn’t need to take on any new life challenges. A former principal dancer with New York City Ballet, the French-born Millepied has been an established, sought-after choreographer for almost two decades, has directed the Paris Opera Ballet, and runs the L.A. Dance Project, which he founded in 2012. And he recently moved back to Paris with his wife, the actress Natalie Portman, and their two young children.Now, Millepied, 45, has also directed his first feature film, “Carmen,” starring Paul Mescal, Melissa Barrera and Rossy de Palma, with an original score by Nicholas Britell (“Moonlight,” “Succession”). The movie is a hard-to-categorize blend of drama, dance and music that draws loosely on the narrative of Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, setting much of the action on the Mexico-U.S. border, with Mescal as a traumatized war veteran who saves Barrera’s Carmen, a Mexican immigrant fleeing from danger.Millepied had long been a keen amateur photographer and a cinephile, and had made a number of short dance films, when, through Portman, he met Britell. “We began to talk about movies and about collaborating,” Millepied said. “‘Carmen’ was the idea that stuck.”In a telephone conversation, Britell mentioned that he had recently found an email exchange with Millepied from more than 10 years ago in which they had discussed “Carmen” as “a touchstone for imagining an experimental dream world.” Britell added that although neither man was entirely sure what that meant at the time, “the wonderful thing about working with Ben is that he is open to following his instincts and to experimentation. He had such a strong sense of what he was looking for, but also left me to make my own discoveries about how the music would work.”The hybrid, idiosyncratic nature of the film was a draw for Mescal (“Normal People,” “Aftersun”). “It was so unconventional, outside of any genre I could firmly put my finger on, which was a challenge that really appealed to me,” he said.Mescal signed on because the concept “was so unconventional, outside of any genre I could firmly put my finger on, which was a challenge that really appealed to me.”Ben King/Goalpost Pictures/Sony Pictures ClassicsPart of that challenge, he added, was the dancing. “I am not a dancer, but Benjamin knows how people’s bodies work,” he said. “He knew what I could do, which was essentially to support Melissa.” Barrera (“In the Heights,” “Scream VI”) added that the experience of making the film had been “different from anything else I’ve done.”“I am a very rational actor, always overthinking things, wanting clarity,” she said. “Benjamin would say, ‘Trust me: Everything is communicated with body language and eyes.’”After the movie showed at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, critics were divided. For IndieWire, David Ehrlich wrote: “‘Carmen’ is stretched across a few too many borders to ever feel like it’s standing on solid ground. And yet, it’s undeniably exhilarating.” Other reviewers were less sure. “It’s an unsteady composition, a frenzied combination of willowy movement pieces, an ecstatic score and a too-loose narrative,” Lovia Gyarkye wrote in The Hollywood Reporter.Over coffee, Millepied discussed the critical reaction to the film, the allure of “Carmen” and working with actors. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why did you want to direct a film?I always had a personal hobby of taking photos, a need to really look at what I was interested in visually. And I have always loved film; I remember watching “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” and Satyajit Ray’s “The Music Room,” when I was around 9 years old. When I was at the School of American Ballet in my teens, I went to movies all the time. I always had this dream at the back of my head about directing a film.What was the pull of “Carmen”?Early on, when I was starting to think about the story, I had dinner with [the director] Peter Sellars and mentioned I wanted to make a “Carmen” film. He got kind of passionate, and said, “You have to reinvent it, it’s a terrible story.” I thought he was right. It’s a 19th-century tale, where the woman gets punished for her sins by getting murdered, and can’t love or be loved. I was interested in her essence — her freedom, her fire.I wanted to tell this woman’s story. It definitely had something to do with my relationship with my mother, to a connection to family history and emotions.Did you think of your version as a musical?I was interested in how to tell a modern story, and use music and dance in a way that doesn’t pause the narrative, isn’t decorative but integral. In the end, the movie tells a lot of the story through movement.The collaboration with Nicholas was huge, and the part of making the film that was closest for me to making a ballet. We would sit at the piano and I would describe the scenes I had in mind, and he would write music and send it to me. It really influenced the mood and aesthetic — gave me visual ideas just as if I was creating a dance.What kind of preparation did you do?I have too much respect for the craft, effort and practice it takes to choreograph something not to be equally conscientious about directing. I watched and analyzed hundreds of films, read film histories and found amazing resources online. I fell in love with so many directors that I felt were choreographers, who moved people and the camera with such imagination and complexity. Elia Kazan, Kurosawa, Bresson, Antonioni, Sally Potter, Kubrick: I watched, I watched, I watched, and I learned.I also made a short narrative film, a “Romeo and Juliet,” with Margaret Qualley, which I never showed but was very helpful in showing me the process.Rossy de Palma with Barrera in the film. Barrera said Millepied asked her to communicate with her body language and eyes.Goalpost Pictures/Sony Pictures ClassicsTalking about the way you worked, Rossy de Palma said, “The camera becomes another dancer and dances with you.” Did your experience as a choreographer help as a film director?I think it helped with the physicality of the acting. We shot some of the movie in Australia, and while the actors were quarantining, I had them do Gaga classes, a technique for exploring every part of your body. It’s a great thing to do to make sure your expressiveness is not just cerebral. And it definitely helped with staging complex scenes. I think also, because of my background, I was unafraid of letting bodies speak: using physicality to tell the story.How did you approach directing actors?I had the benefit of listening to Natalie talk about her experiences and collaborations. It was daunting, definitely, and I had to rely on my instincts about what felt true to the story. Obviously you need to know the back story of your characters inside out, but you also have to let them surprise you. I was lucky to have great actors. We were playful, we were free with the dialogue, and we always tried to see if there were interesting places to go.The film had mixed reviews at Toronto, some quite negative. How did you feel about that?I have too much experience of being reviewed to think about that too much. When George Balanchine premiered Liebeslieder Walzer, a masterpiece of 20th-century ballet, someone said to him, “Look how many people are leaving.” He said, “Look how many people are staying.”I make my work with as much discipline as I can, and I am very lucky to be able to do that; it’s a great honor. The financial stakes for movies are very different to making a ballet. But, you know, if I can’t make films freely, I’ll make furniture. There are always ways to be creative. More

Rachael Leigh Cook stars in this bland rom-com as a travel executive exploring Vietnam and getting over a breakup.The first thing we learn about Amanda (Rachael Leigh Cook) in “A Tourist’s Guide to Love” is that she works for a high-end agency called Tourista World Travel. But nobody in this Netflix film even comments on the fact that “turista” is slang for vacation-wrecking diarrhea. That puzzling choice and its utter lack of consequences are the only surprise in Steven Tsuchida’s film, a rom-com that so scrupulously fulfills every cliché of the genre, it might as well have been devised by ChatGPT.Amanda is dispatched to Vietnam to check out a small tour company that Tourista is considering buying to develop its market in the area. The assignment is also a good distraction: She was recently dumped by her dull accountant boyfriend, John (Ben Feldman). Going undercover as a regular tourist, albeit an extremely well-prepared one, she’s immediately drawn to the floppy-haired guide, Sinh (Scott Ly). He is the kind of dreamboat who has both abs and sensitivity, and can show Amanda not just his country’s beauty, but how to enjoy life.Sinh eventually doffs his shirt at the beach and emerges from the water in resplendent slow motion, because the clichés here are as tightly packed in as tchotchkes in a traveler’s suitcase: Amanda is a perky American Type A; village elders are cute as buttons and wise as Yoda; street food is tantalizing; jaded Westerners rediscover themselves as they ditch their phones and bask in a rural experience made only sweeter by the knowledge that it’s temporary. The soundtrack’s catchy Vietnamese songs provide the only fizz in this otherwise flat concoction.A Tourist’s Guide to LoveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

A date becomes a spy skirmish in this action-heavy, paint-by-numbers Apple TV+ rom-com starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.“Ghosted,” a frothy spy-thriller rom-com in the tradition of “Romancing the Stone” and “The Jewel of the Nile,” is one of the least convincing movies I have ever seen. I don’t just mean that the dialogue is trite and phony, or that the characters feel inauthentic, or that the action is badly choreographed, or even that the plot is paper-thin and contrived, although all of this is regrettably true.I mean that “Ghosted” barely seems like a real movie. It has movie stars, in the figures of Ana de Armas and Chris Evans (and, as the villain, Adrien Brody). It has a competent director, Dexter Fletcher, whose hit “Rocketman” wasn’t half-bad.But this tedious, unfunny, screamingly unoriginal romantic adventure film is so flimsy and so insubstantial that it’s practically vaporous.Evans, who can be charming, stars as Cole, a clean-cut, down-to-earth farmer who dreams of publishing a book on the history of agriculture. While working at his family market stall one afternoon, he meets Sadie (de Armas), and within minutes the two embark on a high-speed fling. But it turns out that Sadie is a C.I.A. agent, code name the Taxman, and in a gender-reversed “True Lies” situation, Cole is swiftly embroiled in Sadie’s high-stakes world of international espionage, whisked off in escapades across London and far-flung destinations that look like they were filmed on green screens.Evans and de Armas are likable actors, but any charm they might have mustered for each other is torpedoed by the facile writing, featuring such memorable zingers as “I have dated some crazies in my day, but you are certifiable!”The spy stuff is also laughable. The movie seems more concerned with shoehorning in transparently fan-baiting cameos (including Sebastian Stan and Ryan Reynolds) than with developing anything remotely like credible stakes, while the action set pieces suffer from unimaginative staging and some of the cheapest-looking visual effects in recent memory.GhostedRated PG-13 for some graphic violence, torture, strong language and mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

A retired detective returns to his job to hunt down a child killer in this distinctive and Béla Tarr-influenced film.“Twilight” adapts a 1958 Friedrich Dürrenmatt detective story. It’s the tale of a retired police chief who returns to his work to find a child murderer. In György Fehér’s adaptation — released internationally in 1990, but now showing in the United States for the first time — the unnamed detective’s investigation begins when a young girl is discovered dead near a statue of an eagle holding a sword. This statue is of a Turul, a long-observed symbol of Hungarian national strength. Much like this arresting image, “Twilight” imposes a uniquely Hungarian perspective on what might have otherwise been simple pulp material.Fehér’s adaptation sets the story squarely in the Hungarian countryside. It is light on specific details like the year of its events or the names and histories of its principal figures. The emphasis on atmosphere over evidence grants the film a fable-like quality. Even the main suspect is known only to the detective (Péter Haumann) as a giant. Fehér builds up his nightmare using visual techniques that are redolent of his countryman and sometime collaborator, the Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, who is best known for his formally and philosophically challenging epics. (Fehér produced Tarr’s “Sátántangó,” and Tarr is credited as a consultant on this film.)Tarr’s brutalist influence is visible onscreen, present in the film’s stark black-and-white cinematography, its long takes and Fehér’s elaborate, painterly camera setups. The images create the impression of a bleak landscape, a Hungary where the past, present and future appear drained not only of color, but of hope itself. Fehér’s actors offer muted, naturalistic performances, and Fehér limits the number of camera setups and cuts down on extraneous dialogue. His abundant restrictions make simple elements like cuts to close-ups or the detective plot play as cracking indulgences. It’s a style so minimalist, it approaches maximalism — and this combination of pulp and precision creates an arresting and unique work of film noir.TwilightNot rated. In Hungarian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More