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      ‘Nowhere’ Review: Sensationalism at Sea

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      This thriller from the Spanish director Albert Pintó follows a pregnant refugee forced to survive in a shipping container adrift in the ocean.Disasters at sea have provided audiences with lurid thrills for hundreds of years, if not thousands. “Nowhere,” the latest addition to the seafaring survivalist tradition, won’t be remembered for long.The film’s protagonist is Mía (Anna Castillo), a pregnant refugee fleeing totalitarian violence alongside her lover, Nico (Tamar Novas). A radio broadcast suggests that they’re escaping a war-torn Spain. But the film proves uninterested in exploring this dystopia, instead settling into generic survivalist sensationalism.Mía and Nico start their journey together along with dozens of other migrants, but the brokers of their passage force the migrants to separate. Nico and Mía are split up. Mía’s struggles intensify as government forces stop the travelers: She hides amid cargo as police officers murder those around her, mostly women and children. Her container is hosed clean of blood, and packed onto a ship.Mía is alone. Her solitude becomes absolute when a storm knocks her container into the ocean. Bullet holes and dubious physics prevent the container from filling with water completely, and Mía is left to drift at sea, responsible for her survival and the survival of her soon-to-be-born child.As directed by Albert Pintó, “Nowhere” is a spectacle of fortune and disaster, good luck and bad breaks. There are some small innovations that strike clever notes — Mía manages to build flotation contraptions from Tupperware and make skylights using power drills. But it’s hard to care about Mía’s efforts to survive when coincidence drives the plot, and the production looks and feels cheap. There’s just one set, a few props and an admirably committed performance from a waterlogged Castillo, who keeps this flimsy vessel afloat.NowhereNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Mami Wata’ Review: An Old God Flickers Out in a New Era

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      In this striking film by the Nigerian director C.J. Obasi, with the help of a mysterious stranger, a village awakens to what is possible.The old god is dead. A stranger washes ashore. A rebellion begins to simmer, preparing the way for an emerging era. In “Mami Wata,” the archetypes are familiar, but they work to make this Nigerian film a distinctly economical masterpiece.Written and directed by C.J. Obasi (also known as Fiery), this modern fable is both haunting and ravishing, transporting us to a seaside village where Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) communes with Mami Wata, a water goddess who provides good harvests and grants Efe powers to heal the sick.But Efe’s powers seem to dim after one of her daughters, Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), rebels and steals Efe’s totem.People begin questioning their god, and, noticing that the other villages have hospitals and schools, security and law enforcement, while they rely on Mami Wata, they blame Efe for the stunted progress of their village. Soon after, a man (Emeka Amakeze) mysteriously washes up on the beach, barely alive, and begins to connect both with Efe’s other daughter, the fiercely loyal Prisca (Evelyne Ily), and a group looking to rebel against Efe. Eventually, things come to a crisis point in this allegory about the battle of new versus old, the corrupting influence of power and the shadow of colonial rule.Obasi manages to distill themes that are at once primal and complex with virtuosic simplicity via the film’s arresting score, its refined story and dialogue and its black and white cinematography, which is more striking than most any modern Technicolor fantasy. It’s a tightly controlled vision that, like many parables, induces a sense of the suddenly, viscerally new — in the look of a figure against the ocean, or the words of a mother telling her child to run — in what we’ve seen before and have always known.Mami WataNot rated. In West African pidgin English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Story Ave’ Review: Elevated Training

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      A Bronx teenager looks for a channel for his artistic talent in this debut feature from Aristotle Torres.“Story Ave” is billed as “a story by The Bronx,” which feels fitting — the borough is a major character. Shooting in a narrow aspect ratio, the director, Aristotle Torres, who expanded this debut feature from a short, seems as interested in capturing snapshots of a cinematically neglected pocket of New York — its graffiti murals, its alleyways, its restaurants tucked under elevated train tracks — as he is in the plot. (The title refers to a fictitious subway stop along the 6 line.)The protagonist is Kadir (Asante Blackk), a high schooler grappling with the recent accidental death of his brother. His mother is grieving too, but is ill-equipped to help him cope. Without a sturdy parental figure, Kadir, who has serious artistic potential — pictures of his brother are a signature — is tested by Skemes (Melvin Gregg), the leader of a graffiti gang, who tells him to commit a holdup.But when Kadir chooses an M.T.A. worker, Luis (Luis Guzmán), on a deserted subway platform, his would-be mark instead invites him for Cuban sandwiches at a spot downstairs. Luis bargains away the gun Kadir is carrying, and their eventual friendship gives the movie its most assured and confidently played scenes. (Torres wrote the script with Bonsu Thompson.)The film is cleareyed about Kadir’s artistic values and the potentially dangerous outcomes of his decisions. (Skemes is revealed to have made a similar choice between the art world and gangs.) “Story Ave” is marred by late revelations that appear designed, in a studio-notes sort of way, to clarify motivations. What’s unspoken — and what’s seen — does enough.Story AveNot rated. In English and Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Kill Room’ Review: Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson Reunite

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      The “Pulp Fiction” actors Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson reunite in a bloody saga that is past its “best by” date, but includes an all-star supporting cast.As far as “Pulp Fiction” pairings go, the actors Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson in the satirical crime comedy “The Kill Room” generate more pleasure than seeing Bruce Willis and John Travolta in last year’s hackneyed action thriller “Paradise City.”This is because “The Kill Room,” directed by Nicol Paone from a script by Jonathan Jacobson, gives them a good deal of scenery to chew on together, at least at the beginning.Thurman, a producer on the film, plays Patrice, a gallerist in Manhattan who is refusing to crumble as she faces a set of financial shortfalls. Jackson plays Gordon, a bialy craftsman known to his associates as “Black Dreidel,” whose Jersey City bakery is a front for organized crime.Gordon looks after an assassin, Reggie (Joe Manganiello), whose hits are making them enough cash to potentially alert the authorities. As a cover, he instructs Reggie to start painting and enlists Patrice in a money-laundering scheme in which each canvas represents a murder, and is sold for a respectable amount of money via a respectable check.But the script’s sendup of the gallery world is stale, as is its depiction of organized crime, which has a group of vulgar Russian guys at the top. The premise rests upon a tired and philistine notion about modern art, here iterated by an indignant criminal’s protest, “My five-year-old makes better paintings than that with his fingers.”And while the supporting cast is replete with performers we like to see — Debi Mazar, Larry Pine, and Thurman’s daughter, Maya Hawke, as a feminist artist — the script, in the end, does little to support them.The Kill RoomRated R for violence, language. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Fire Through Dry Grass’ Review: Unsafe Space

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      This enlightening, troubling documentary chronicles life (and death) among residents in a long-term care facility during the heights of the pandemic.As the acute threat of Covid-19 has waned, it has become easy to forget the surreal devastation of the early days of the pandemic, and the fissures the period exposed in our society. “Fire Through Dry Grass,” directed by Alexis Neophytides and Andres Molina, highlights the plight of those most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Molina, known as Jay, is a resident of Coler Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center, the facility on which the documentary is centered, located on Roosevelt Island.
      Much of the film is made up of cellphone footage shot by Molina or other residents, the sometimes smudged screens adding a dreamlike element that captures the haziness of the early pandemic, when days seemed to blend. Poetry by residents punctuates the images, which also include news clips, Zoom meetings and animation (drawn by LeVar Lawrence, who also lives in the home).The film is effective at highlighting the anger, fear and loneliness the patients felt as the pandemic dragged on, with conditions at the facility, already not ideal, taking a turn toward the deplorable: Long-term residents were housed alongside patients sick with Covid. Some developed bed sores from staff neglect, and lay for hours or days without being bathed or having their diapers changed. The film documents their fight for improved conditions and the right to leave the facility.The combination of firsthand footage with poetry makes for an intimate and raw film that gives a real sense of the confinement faced by the residents, some of whom compared the experience to previous jail stints. It’s a powerful reminder of how defining and devastating the pandemic was, and gives space to those whose voices were long ignored.Fire Through Dry GrassNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Carlos’ Review: Santana’s Soulful Legacy

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      In Rudy Valdez’s poignant but shortsighted documentary, the guitarist’s magic comes alive in performances and childhood recollections.Since his breakthrough at the Fillmore in San Francisco and then a star-making performance at Woodstock in 1969, Carlos Santana’s fusion of improvisational Latin rock and blues has been regarded as transcendent.In the director Rudy Valdez’s poignant but shortsighted documentary, “Carlos,” that same magic comes alive through performance clips from various eras of the Mexican guitarist’s half-century-long career and commentary about his life offstage. Santana’s ethereal mood imbues the movie with a numinous feel — even a childhood anecdote that he shares about his father communicating to birds while playing the violin at sunset is delivered with an affecting cosmic touch.Although Santana, 76, reveals some raw details of his life — his father’s infidelity, experiencing sexual abuse as a child — the portrait, rendered primarily through interviews, leaves a lot out. For fans wondering about the anti-trans comments that he made at a show in July and then apologized for, there’s nothing in the documentary that mentions his political stances. The film presents Santana without critique.Other interviews can feel muted. His sisters, exhibiting hesitant body language, don’t seem like they want to say too much. His bandmate and second wife, Cindy Blackman Santana, is even quieter. Deeper insights from a rock critic or music historian would have enriched the film to fully convey not just what Santana’s legacy is but what it means. Still, this controlled documentary captivates as a soulful personal history, even if it doesn’t exactly transcend.CarlosRated R for coarse language, brief nudity and rock ’n’ roll drug talk. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Flora and Son’ Review: Once, With More Feeling

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      The writer-director John Carney, whose feature “Once” made musical waves, returns with another charming songwriter tale.“Flora and Son,” a satisfying demimusical from the Irish writer and director John Carney (“Once,” “Sing Street”), opens with an unexpected blast of techno. This kind of hard, sweaty beat propels our churlish heroine Flora (Eve Hewson), although by the end of the first sequence, it’s clear that the clubbing, and the booze, and the one-night stands have given her a perpetual hangover. Barely in her 30s, the self-destructive single mother is throwing away her future with an assist from her feckless ex, Ian (Jack Reynor, sputtering and hilarious), and their 14-year-old son, Max (Oren Kinlan), a thief and would-be rapper. It’s a testament to Hewson’s extraordinary charisma that her character can openly wish Max would get kidnapped and we root for her anyway. But since she’s saddled with the boy, Flora foists a junked guitar on him as a birthday present. “It’s a piano,” she jokes. The lad is unimpressed.This is Carney’s saltiest ode to creative expression — and, peculiarly, his most relatable. Every one of his earlier leads would consider themselves musical. Not Flora. One night, when she’s drunk and watching “American Idol,” she signs up for cheap online lessons from a YouTube instructor named Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a somewhat pretentious Springsteen clone barely scraping by in Los Angeles. (Jeff has, however, apparently stage-decorated his home with movie star-worthy lighting.) Flora explains that she just wants to impress men — specifically him, and would he also strip off his shirt? Jeff declines.How is Carney going to convince the audience that his angry trainwreck can convert herself into a rock goddess? Carney knows that we’re uneasily expecting yet another underdog-turned-superstar crowd-pleaser, and so he teases us into a state of suspense. There’s an enjoyable irony in a script that celebrates folk guitar while structuring itself like house music — the whole running time feels like we’re on the dance floor with Flora waiting for the cliché to drop. At the same time, Flora and Jeff slowly co-write a love ballad that echoes through the movie, its evolving incarnations allowing the filmmaker to serve chewable lessons on the qualities of strumming versus plucking, the purpose of a bridge, and the difference between a ditty and a hit. Carney also works in a subtle dig at twee coffeehouse darlings with ukuleles and a blunter attack directed at, uh, James Blunt.The film can be sloppy with its montages. A hip-hop video featuring Max is cut together more to make us laugh than as something he’d actually share online. (An image-conscious tween would cut those bloopers.) The buildup to the climax is rushed, and the final shot is, I guess, a hazy implication that music belongs to everyone? But Carney has already made that point sublimely. In the movie’s most delicate scene, Flora presses play on a Joni Mitchell performance that she’s been assigned as homework and turns away to wash dishes. Yet Mitchell’s voice gradually pulls Flora back to the screen. How beautiful to watch a song crack open a hardened heart. Not everyone can be a professional artist — but we can all welcome art into our lives.Flora and SonRated R for raunchy talk and colorful parental guidance. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘The Creator’ Review: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love A.I.

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      In this hectic, futuristic action film, John David Washington hunts down a threatening artificial intelligence with the baby face of a child.It’s been a tough year for artificial intelligence. First, industry leaders warn that A.I. poses an extinction-level threat to humanity. Then, screenwriters and actors warn roughly the same thing about artists losing their livelihoods (and art losing its soul). And let’s not forget predictions of vast unemployment and upheaval. What’s a superintelligent, terrifyingly autonomous technology got to do to get back on people’s good sides?One answer comes in the whirlwind form of “The Creator,” the latest film directed by Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One,” “Godzilla”). We’ve grown accustomed to A.I. playing the role of helper-turned-villain in movies, and here a rapid newsreel-style prologue sets a familiar stage: Robots were invented, did increasingly complex tasks, and then went nuclear (devastating, in this case, Los Angeles). Now the United States is bent on eliminating their threat, while in East Asian countries (dubbed “New Asia”), bots live at peace with humans. Humanlike robots with Roomba-like heads are police officers, workers, even (somewhat jarringly) saffron-robed monks.One thing stays the same in the future: The movies need a hero. John David Washington plays the reluctant man for the job, Joshua, an ex-undercover soldier who dropped out of sight after a messy raid separated him from his pregnant wife, Maya (Gemma Chan). He is recruited for a U.S. military mission, led by Allison Janney as a no-nonsense colonel, to neutralize a top-secret weapon in New Asia. After a macho fly-in that lightly evokes Vietnam War movies (but with a Radiohead soundtrack), he infiltrates an underground lab only to find a mysterious weapon: an A.I. with the human form of a fairly unflappable 6-year-old girl. Joshua decides to take her on the lam, naming her Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).Unlike countless A.I. doomsday scenarios, Alphie is too cute and innocent for Joshua to treat as a military target. He’s drawn to protecting her, though unnerved by her near-telekinetic powers of jamming technology all around her. Her personhood is the sort of conundrum posed with daunting depth in, for example, Spielberg’s millennium masterpiece “A.I.” or more outré films like “Demon Seed.” But here Alphie’s significance functions like a warm-and-fuzzy halo above all the gunfire and explosions: What if A.I. isn’t out to get us? What if it just wants to live and let live?Posing these questions requires doing a little heavy lifting on behalf of the film, which is busy spurring on the hectic pursuit of Alphie and Joshua (by, among others, Ken Watanabe as a dogged A.I. “simulant”). Edwards (who wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz) fluently integrates images and ideas from our established cinematic vocabulary for thinking about A.I. But despite the impressively sweeping C.G.I. running battles in Thai fields or seaside settlements, or the gritty “Blade Runner”-lite interludes in crowded metropolises, the story’s engine produces the straightforward momentum of your average action blockbuster — one thing happens, then the next thing, complete with punchy (sometimes tin-eared) one-liners.Still, tech eye candy can go a long way in science fiction. Humanlike robots like Alphie have elegant circular portals where their ears would be. Nomad, the massive spaceship that the United States uses to hunt down artificial intelligence, scans Earth with blue light, like a colossal photocopier. But Washington feels curiously disconnected from the visual set pieces that Edwards builds out, and his character’s increasingly fraught back story with Maya feels scattered across flashbacks. Above all, the film’s tone is uneven: Edwards pushes the relatable ordinariness of the androids and hybrid “simulants,” but the potential menace of A.I. inescapably looms.The film’s matter-of-fact acceptance of A.I. as an innocuous (or indifferent) force in the world is reminiscent of Edwards’s 2014 take on “Godzilla.” The monsters in that movie weren’t bad per se; they were just creatures independent of humans. This is more or less the case made for A.I. in “The Creator”: autonomy without tears (or bloodshed). It’s a provocative idea — all A.I. wants from humans is a little love — but that utopia doesn’t compute.The CreatorRated PG-13 for violent havoc. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes. In theaters. More