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      ‘Unicorns’ Review: Where Glitter Meets Grit

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      This movie, directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, follows Luke and Aysha, who meet by chance at a drag event.When Luke (Ben Hardy), a single dad in “Unicorns,” meets Aysha (Jason Patel), a drag queen, Luke thinks Aysha is a cisgender woman. After they kiss, there’s a palpable fear for Aysha’s safety when Luke recoils at the sight of her Adam’s apple.“Unicorns,” directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, follows in the cinematic tradition of straight men bonding with L.G.B.T.Q. characters — this time arriving at a moment when drag performers face renewed attacks.Their unlikely encounter begins at a nightclub in East London, when Luke, a white working-class guy, accidentally stumbles into the underground “gaysian” scene on his way to the bathroom. His eyes are fixed on Aysha, the night’s star performer. But why would Aysha — who later says that she receives death threats for doing drag — seek him out not once, but twice? First, by running in front of his car after his agitated reaction to their kiss, and then by showing up at his car repair shop in Essex. None of this clicks with who we discover Aysha to be: guarded by necessity.Whether the later conflict involving queer infighting comes off as a thoughtless subversion of expectations depends on if you identify more with Luke or Aysha. More effective are the subtleties within their blossoming romance, like during a karaoke duet sequence that shows Luke softening to Aysha’s charms. Hardy peels back the layers to reveal Luke’s sexual awakening so viscerally that it’s easier to overlook the film’s narrative shortcuts.UnicornsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Smurfs’ Review: Don’t Stop the Music

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      The lovable blue guys (and one gal) go on a mission to save Papa Smurf in this colorful romp with an impressive voice cast.Smurfs, the blue-skinned, white-clad wee creatures created by the Belgian comic artist Pierre Culliford, known as Peyo, in 1958, have come a long way.This feature film, ostensibly a reboot of a franchise that began in 2011 with a picture called “The Smurfs,” is the most lavish and possibly bizarre cinematic take on these folk. Here, Smurfette (voiced by Rihanna), leads her fellow Smurfs on a mission to save Papa Smurf (voiced by John Goodman), who has been kidnapped.The little fellas and lone Smurfette speak as the Smurfs always have — that is, they say things like “You Smurfs don’t know Smurf about Smurf.” The word “Smurf” can be a noun, verb or a gerund.Each Smurf in Smurf Village serves a specific function or has a specific trait; Brainy Smurf can solve problems, while Vanity Smurf is, well, vain. Into this mix arrives a Smurf who doesn’t know his function because he doesn’t have a name (voiced by James Corden). From this introduction the viewer is catapulted into a singing, dancing multidimensional romp in which, among other things, four books are responsible for maintaining balance in the universe. (I was disappointed to learn they were not Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet.”)The loopy plot allows the director Chris Miller to unleash visuals that get trippy to the extreme. There’s a clever sequence in which the characters traverse planes of reality that tell a short history of animation itself. It’s refreshing to see children’s animation makers use surrealism, instead of winking pop-culture references, to charm adults.The excellent voice cast features Goodman and Nick Offerman as dueling patriarchs. They’re all very zippy, or if you wish, Smurfy.SmurfsRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Review: Nostalgia Is Overrated

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      This revival of a 1990s horror franchise fumbles its shot.Following a string of mid-to-meh horror reboots that seem only to reaffirm the original’s greatness (like “Black Christmas” in 2019, “Candyman” in 2021 and “Scream” in 2022), the latest resurrection, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” has something big going for it: Its predecessor from 1997 is a bit of a dud.That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of us who think fondly of the coastal teen slasher, a major hit in its time starring (and perhaps buoyed by) its flashy ensemble cast, which included the It Girls Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Party of Five”) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (“Buffy”).Scored with grungy alt-rock tracks and set in the foggy fishing town of Southport, N.C., the film follows four high school grads stalked by a hook-wielding killer who somehow knows they’re the culprits behind a hit-and-run that took place the previous Fourth of July. Like a mash-up of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and a P.S.A. for drunk-driving, all inflected with the era’s pessimism for the future, the film remains a notable artifact of ’90s youth culture. But, frankly, I still find it generic — and weirdly low energy — for a masked-maniac movie.In other words, there’s room for improvement — but Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s new version fumbles its shot.Back in Southport, 27 years after the events of the original, a new group of reckless friends triggers the wrath of another madman in slickers after a roadside incident. Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) is back from college to attend an engagement party for Danica (Madelyn Cline); she’s also eager to rekindle the flame with Milo (Jonah Hauer-King). At the same time, their once-estranged working-class pal, Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), has re-entered the friend group, replacing the trust-fund brat, Teddy (Tyriq Withers), Danica’s ex, whose politically influential father (Billy Campbell) covered up the deadly accident. Then, the night after Danica opens a card at her bridal shower with the film title’s menacing words, her fiancé Wyatt (Joshua Orpin) gets gutted by a harpoon gun, kicking off the murder spree and opening up a mystery about who knows the group’s secret.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Finally Dawn’ Review: A Night to Remember in Rome

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      This Italian drama, set in the 1950s and starring Lily James, Willem Dafoe and Joe Keery, sends a star-struck naïf through the looking glass darkly.In “Finally Dawn,” a black-and-white World War II playing onscreen gives way to a richly hued scene of sisters Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci), Iris (Sofia Panizzi) and their mother, Elvira (Carmen Pommella), sitting in a Roman cinema arguing the merits of Italian neorealism versus Hollywood’s star-dusted fare.As the three women leave the theater, a man approaches and proposes that the Iris audition as an extra for an American-produced sand-and-sandal epic filming at Cinecittà studios. The writer and director Saverio Costanzo sets this movie about the movies and their allure in the 1950s, a period when Cinecittà was called Hollywood on the Tiber.If Iris’s future brightens, Mimosa’s appears to dim. But after a bit of dumb luck and a series of backlot mishaps, Mimosa becomes a “featured extra.” And soon she is swept up into the world of the movie star Josephine Esperanto (Lily James), her self-serious co-star Sean Lockwood (Joe Keery), the up-and-coming starlet Nan Roth (Rachel Sennott) and Josephine’s confidant, Rufus Priori (Willem Dafoe).Casting an inky shadow over Mimosa’s long night — which resembles an abduction as much as it does an adventure — is the recent discovery of a dead actress. This is the director’s nod to the 1953 murder of Wilma Montesi, a 21-year-old woman, which captivated the Italian press. The death is also a wink toward Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.” “Finally Dawn” is at its most intriguing as Costanzo entrusts his curly haired, wide-eyed naïf to maneuver the looking glass of Italian versus Hollywood cinema. Hint: Italy comes off more soulful.Finally DawnNot rated. In English and Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Cloud’ Review: Buyer’s Remorse

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      In this genre-bending thriller, an online reseller’s tale of vengeance becomes a parable of human greed and disconnection.Just as Yoshii (Masaki Suda), sitting on the bus with his girlfriend, is beginning to dream about a better future early on in “Cloud,” the camera gradually inches over, and the outline of a dark figure suddenly hovers over him. Things go deathly quiet and Yoshii turns, but the figure has dashed off the bus.It’s the kind of breathtaking moment you’d expect from the writer and director Kiyoshi Kurosawa whose breakout masterpiece, “Cure” (1997), showcased his virtuosic control of tension and atmosphere. That consummate formal ability has one ready to follow the eclectic Japanese auteur wherever this taut suspense might take us, even if, in this latest work, it might end up in some disjointed directions.Here, Kurosawa’s story of what might initially appear to be sinister morphs boldly and almost irreverently into a tale of slapstick vengeance that carries with it whiffs of Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” Underneath all that is perhaps something sinister still, though not from an expected place.As an online reseller who poaches just about any product he can find to sell at a higher price, Yoshii has recently had a windfall, selling a batch of medical devices. He quits his factory day job and moves to a house in the woods with his girlfriend, hoping to expand his business. Yet, eerie instances have him looking over his shoulder, and his dubious reselling practices begin to attract enemies.The gears switch hard in the film’s second half, as Yoshii’s karmic retribution comes knocking. But the gunslinging that ensues is not slick nor even particularly gruesome. This is the story of desperate men, pummeled by failure and itching for violent catharsis; although mostly what they get is clumsy death.That incongruence, in the movie’s eyes, embodies the distinction and friction between the digital world and the real one. Online, everyone represents either cash to be made (at seemingly every turn of real and present danger, Yoshii is still just thinking of his rinky-dink hustle) or a scapegoat for one’s anger. But in the physical world, those visions of revenge play out differently. Often, at decisive moments, these characters take on the persona of a villain, shouting out their machinations like they would on an online forum, only for reality to bluntly knock them over the head.It’s a surprisingly funny film in that way, but also disturbing. For all of his genre-bending on display, Kurosawa is interested in something more real and more dark about humanity’s capacity for greed and bitterness, and the quiet ways that the internet can further mutate those diseases in us.But that subtext gets muddled in the director’s primary desire to construct playful surprises, even if some of which, particularly by the end, can be wonderfully, terrifyingly strange. Ultimately, “Cloud” is constructing a highway to hell for Yoshii in which the demons are not phantom, but us.CloudNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Eddington’ Review: Once Upon a Time in the Pandemic

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      Ari Aster returns with a dystopian Western farce about a world gone mad that you definitely remember.The first and maybe only true jump scare in Ari Aster’s “Eddington” comes right at the start. A barefoot old man trudges down the center of a road running through an empty Western town. He’s ranting and incoherently raving as he climbs a craggy hill silhouetted against a twilight sky. He gazes, or maybe glares, out at the town below.And then, the jolt, via text onscreen: LATE MAY, 2020.Buckle up and hang on. Now we know why the streets are empty, and the man’s ravings take on some new dimension: Maybe he’s just regular unhinged, or maybe he’s been driven into lunacy by the last eight or so weeks of madness. Or maybe he’s the only sane one left. Who can tell? By late May 2020, even the most unflappable among us felt one raisin short of a fruitcake.We were living with an invisible and potentially extinction-level threat, people were dying and the sirens were unrelenting. But we were also surrounded by screens from which blared real facts, half-facts, fact-shaped nonsense and full-on gobbledygook. It all felt more real than reality itself, which in turn felt like something we had once seen in a movie.That feeling of unreal reality is what “Eddington” sets out to capture, and that is Aster’s specialty. He was introduced to us as a horror director with 2018’s “Hereditary” (family and demonic horror) and 2019’s “Midsommar” (relationship and folk horror), but in 2023 he swerved into obviously personal territory with “Beau Is Afraid” — basically therapy journals dumped out on a table and come to hilarious, psychotically anxious life.I love all of these movies, clearly designed to be feel-bad flicks and also provide twisted catharsis. It is hard to have a medium-size reaction to an Aster joint, and perhaps never more than with “Eddington.” This one is a Western, centering on Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), the beleaguered asthmatic sheriff of the titular New Mexico town. He lives with his depressed wife, Louise (Emma Stone), who makes weird little dolls and sells them on the internet, and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), who moved in with them when the pandemic started and has gotten really into YouTube conspiracy theorists. (“Coronavirus, they used that word in 2019!” she tells her daughter and son-in-law over breakfast, by way of convincing them that this is all some kind of … well, who knows.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paulette Jiles, 82, Dies; Novelist Evoked the West in ‘News of the World’

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      A poet and memoirist as well, she drew a wide readership with her historical fiction, notably with a Civil War-era tale that was adapted for a movie starring Tom Hanks.Paulette Jiles, a horse-riding poet who wrote historical novels that evoked the grit and natural grandeur of the 19th-century American West, notably in “News of the World,” in which a Civil War veteran and a 10-year-old girl embark on a 400-mile journey in search of the girl’s relatives, died on July 8 in San Antonio. She was 82.Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her step-granddaughter, Faith Elaine Lowry, who said the cause was gastric complications. Ms. Jiles disclosed in a blog post in June that she had been diagnosed with “some kind of nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.”Ms. Jiles published six books of poetry, two memoirs and nine novels. Together, more than a million copies of her works have been sold in the United States, according to BookScan, a sales tracking system.Her novels drew inspiration from Civil War-era history and from her own horseback trail rides through Missouri and the Southwest as she explored the region’s fraught past in granular and seemingly lived-in detail, often through long, perilous journeys that her characters undertake.Her writing coupled extensive research with austere prose, snappy dialogue and textured characters who reappear from book to book, offering continuity to devoted readers.One character, based on a real historical figure, is the rugged and honorable Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd, the Civil War veteran from “News of the World” (2016) who makes a living keeping a frontier public informed by reading aloud to them from newspapers. He becomes roped into a wildly hazardous journey from Wichita Falls, Texas, to San Antonio to return a stoic German girl to her relatives after she is recaptured by U.S. soldiers from the Kiowa tribe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When ‘Clueless’ Made Movie Fashion History

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      With grunge reigning in the mid-1990s, the looks of Cher Horowitz and her friends came as a fun shock. The costume designer takes us through her thought process.Power plaids. Matching sets. Athleisure. All fashion mainstays now, but in the summer of 1995, they weren’t exactly on trend when the murky flannels and shredded denim of grunge ruled. Until a fizzy comedy starring an 18-year-old Alicia Silverstone set at a Beverly Hills high school rolled into theaters like a white Jeep Wrangler with a monster sound system. No, you’re not totally buggin’, friends, it’s the 30th anniversary of “Clueless.”Directed by Amy Heckerling, who loosely based her screenplay on Jane Austen’s “Emma,” the teen classic centers on Cher Horowitz (Silverstone) and her well-intentioned matchmaking in the halls and malls of Beverly Hills. Cher’s circle of friends includes her bestie Dionne (Stacey Dash); her frenemy Amber (Elisa Donovan); Christian (Justin Walker), her crush; and Tai (Brittany Murphy), her protégée. But from the opening scene, the film’s fashion vibrates with main character energy — and that’s exactly what Heckerling and the costume designer Mona May intended.“We had to create these girls that are authentic but have a certain kind of fashion sense that wasn’t out there” at the time, said May, who drew on her childhood in India, a European sensibility and an encyclopedic knowledge of runway shows to create the movie’s bold styles.“Cher’s looks were completely over-the-top in the best way,” Silverstone wrote in an email. “But that’s what made her iconic!” Of Cher’s impact, Silverstone added, “She gave people permission to look like they cared about their fashion.” The costume designer had a clear vision, Silverstone recalled, adding, “Looking back it’s funny because they were the adults but were much more tapped into youth culture and fashion than I was.”Silverstone’s close friend, the designer Christian Siriano, featured several “Clueless”-inspired looks in his fall 2023 collection. “Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of film fashion that a young designer could fall in love with, and ‘Clueless’ was that,” he said. “Everybody wanted to dress like Cher.On a video call from her home in Los Angeles, May, dressed in a bright pink top, hat and necklace, broke down the movie’s most influential looks. Here are excerpts from her comments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More