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      ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ Review: Keep Calm and Pine On

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      This film, about an American president’s son who falls for a British prince, starts with a giddy premise and has the derring-do to succeed.Like a corgi back-flipping over a bathtub of champagne, “Red, White & Royal Blue” starts with a giddy premise and has the derring-do to succeed. The setup is thus: Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the wild child of the White House, is commanded to clean up an international PR disaster by befriending Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), the cloistered British spare. In the film’s first half, the scions secretly fall in love; in the second, they fret that going public might cause another global kerfuffle just as Alex’s mother (a Southern-drawling Uma Thurman) campaigns for re-election.It sounds like fan fiction and looks like it, too, particularly when Galitzine dips his chin bashfully — a tic that Princess Diana passed on to her boys. Yet, as in any screwball romance worth its trans-Atlantic sea-salt, the first-time director Matthew López gets us rooting for the cheeky couple’s transition from rivals to romantic bedfellows, boosted by the cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, who photographs the leads so adoringly that you half-expect them to turn to the camera and hawk a bottle of cologne. Thanks to their playful chemistry, we’re sold.The film is a heavily trimmed adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s zesty 2019 novel, a TikTok smash whose hashtag boasts more than 500 million views. López (best-known as the Tony-winning playwright of “The Inheritance”) wrote the script with Ted Malawer, and the two add theatrical flourishes that feel over-florid: a late-night phone chat visualized by having Galitzine magically appear in a whirl of digital leaves; a museum stroll voice-over that’s so odd, you wonder if it was a postproduction fix for something gone awry; and, most goofily, an across-the-dance-floor stare-down where Alex and Henry lock eyes as the other revelers, grooving to Lil Jon, get so low that they appear to be playing Duck, Duck, Goose.But the story smartly zeros in on the couple’s cultural gap — or, as Alex expresses it, “He grabbed my hair in a way that made me understand the difference between rugby and football.” Henry has borne a heavy crown since birth and wears his privilege matter-of-factly, though he dreams of anonymity. The Yank is, true to stereotype, brash and idealistic. He remembers being an invisible suburban kid who vowed to accomplish goals that were out of reach for his father (Clifton Collins Jr.), a Mexican immigrant. (Perez also seems aware that his angular cheekbones and roguish swagger make him resemble a young Al Pacino.) Their centerpiece sex scene is intimately staged with Galitzine tracing Perez with his fingertips as though his character wants to remember the moment forever.The D.C. sequences are snappy, freshened-up versions of the banter we’ve long seen on TV. (Sarah Shahi as the president’s no-nonsense aide and Aneesh Sheth as a gruff Secret Service officer are standouts.) Though the credits list a royal etiquette adviser, it’s hard to gauge if this depiction of the monarchy is accurate (paisley loungewear, tiny topiaries, gilt-framed everything) or just a gaga fantasy that allows a prince to coo, “I went to an English boarding school. Trust me, you’re in good hands.”Red, White & Royal BlueRated R for swearing and some royal hanky-panky. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on Amazon Prime Video. More

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      ‘Jules’ Review: Close Encounters of the Lonely Kind

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      Ben Kingsley plays an elderly man struggling with a fading memory when an extraterrestrial crashes into his life.Generally speaking, alien movies tend to go one of either two ways: horror or tenderness. Marc Turtletaub’s “Jules” falls squarely in the latter category — the titular alien who crash-lands in small-town Pennsylvania is a vegetarian, and eats apple slices given to him by his genial human host.But while the film’s premise will be familiar to anyone whose parents sat them down in front of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jules” replaces the usual child protagonists with a trio of baffled senior citizens, all of whom find kinship with the alien’s outsider status and know too well what will happen if word gets out on his arrival to Earth.Milton (Ben Kingsley) is struggling with a fading memory and a strained relationship with his adult daughter (Zoë Winters), whose insistence that he see a psychiatrist escalates when he tells her an alien spaceship destroyed his bird bath. When his pleas for help with the small gray alien are ignored by the other townsfolk, Milton invites the injured extraterrestrial, played by Jade Quon, into his home, and the two quickly form a bond. (Despite Jules — Milton’s nickname for the alien — being nonverbal, he appears to perfectly understand English.) Before long, Milton’s neighbors Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) and Joyce (Jane Curtin) learn of the visitor and, noticing all the suited government officials that have mysteriously arrived in town, decide to help Milton keep their new friend a secret.Underneath its ridiculous framing and outer-space high jinks, “Jules” is full to the brim with empathy for its elderly characters and their desire for personal agency. Kingsley’s performance as Milton injects dignity into a character that could have easily (and cruelly) been played just for laughs, and Harris and Curtin provide similar complexities to their respective roles. In Jules, all three of them are reminded of the importance of companionship in their lives, and how isolation in their old age has made each of them desperately cling to what little they have left. It’s a realization that leads Joyce, with Jules’s help, to finally say goodbye to her aging cat, in a funeral scene that’s as heartwarming as it is absurd.Turtletaub keeps the film’s campier elements to a minimum, preferring to highlight the quaint suburban setting and a lighthearted, understated sense of humor. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” this is not, and despite Jules being a threat to national security, it often feels as though Turtletaub would rather you be curled up in your seat with a mug of cocoa than on the edge of it. But the sweetness isn’t entirely unwelcome — not every alien movie can be “Alien.”JulesRated PG-13 for language and some cartoon sci-fi violence. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Love in Taipei’ Review: Finding Home

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      In this romantic comedy set in Taiwan, a young American finds herself torn between a parent-approved boy wonder and a rebellious slacker.Big on high jinks and light on story, “Love in Taipei” is a breezy film about a woman exploring her roots, making friends and falling in love. The romantic comedy, based on the best-selling young adult novel “Loveboat, Taipei” by Abigail Hing Wen and directed by Arvin Chen, is a charming but ultimately formulaic exploration of cultural identity.Ashley Liao stars as Ever Wong, a young Taiwanese American woman bound for medical school. Raised in Ohio in a primarily white community, Ever feels disconnected from her culture, never having visited her ancestral homeland. Sensing this disconnect, her parents, both born in Taiwan, send her to a cultural summer immersion program in the country’s capital.Chen portrays Taipei as a playful and colorful place, rich with history and possibility. In the program, Ever — who is somewhat shy — meets the popular Rick (Ross Butler) and the mysterious loner Xavier (Nico Hiraga). Rick is the clean-cut, parent-approved boy wonder and Xavier is the rebellious slacker with rakish charm. Both represent a side of Ever’s internal struggle between pleasing her parents by becoming a doctor or taking a different path as a dancer.Despite her pressing career struggle, the screenwriters, Mackenzie Dohr and Charlie Oh, tell Ever’s story at a leisurely pace, more interested in the nuances of the relationships than providing any resolutions. The story functions much like a pilot, leaving Ever’s fate and romantic possibilities open-ended. Like many streaming Y.A. adaptations, “Love in Taipei” seems poised for a sequel.Love in TaipeiNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Paramount+.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More

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      ‘Medusa Deluxe’ Review: Curl Up and Die

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      A gruesome attack on a stylist upends a hairdressing contest in this invigoratingly bold debut.Suffused with the sting of hair spray and the scent of Herbal Essences, “Medusa Deluxe” swaggers onto our screens, all cigarette smoke and mirrors. From its playfully inventive opening to its flash-forward finale, Thomas Hardiman’s wild — and wildly impressive — first feature, set during a British regional hairdressing competition, is a proudly indelicate, painstakingly structured pleasure.Playing out in real time and shot to suggest a single, continuous take, the plot circles the sudden death of the show’s star stylist, who has been found backstage, minus his scalp. As his competitive rivals and their models await questioning by unseen detectives, everyone is under suspicion, not just the creepy security guard with the urgent requests for wet wipes. There’s the mouthy Cleve (Clare Perkins, whose opening monologue is a doozy), a stylist with barely controlled anger issues; the devout Divine (Kayla Meikle), who works part-time for an undertaker and is hence no stranger to dead heads; and the scheming Kendra (Harriet Webb), who may have fixed the contest in cahoots with its silver-pompadoured organizer (Darrell D’Silva).Displaying a flamboyant finesse and a cheeky, can’t-sit-still sensibility, Hardiman hides nuggets of foreshadowing in seemingly throwaway remarks. The whodunit mystery droops well before the end, but the women are fantastic and their dialogue, sharp as a hairpin, has a gossipy tempo that’s fun and energizing. A jumpy, percussive score (by the British electronic artist Koreless) pulses unobtrusively beneath the action, punctuating the characters’ tightly choreographed movements and forming a sonic bond with the crumbling brick of the show’s cavernous venue.Filmed in and around a derelict building in a postindustrial town in the north of England, “Medusa Deluxe” unfolds mainly backstage and below stairs. Clinging as close as dandruff flakes, Robbie Ryan’s snakelike camera follows characters down dimly-lit corridors and echoing stairwells, idling in the fluorescent glare of unlovely bathrooms and dressing rooms before gliding onward.At a time when too many movies feel cautious and constrained, “Medusa Deluxe” is gloriously uninhibited and gaudily diverting. A disco blast of George McCrae will beckon you through the end credits, though the movie is not without poignancy as Cleve remarks that the medium she has spent her life teasing and weaving is dead as soon as it exits the scalp. She knows that her art is temporary, its rewards fleeting, and that her time in the spotlight may never come.Medusa DeluxeRated R for weaponized words and tortured follicles. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘The Pod Generation’ Review: Birthing 2.0

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      This satire on our techno-capitalist future is best enjoyed the way it’s made — without taking itself too seriously.Here’s a new start-up idea: an advanced technology that allows fetuses to listen to podcasts lest they get bored in utero. That’s what the Womb Center offers in Sophie Barthes’s “The Pod Generation,” a wickedly funny and fun, if disconcerting, film that arrives right on time for our age of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence doomerism.In a sci-fi future where everything is ruthlessly, comically optimized by advanced tech, the Womb Center offers digitally monitored, egg-shaped pods that will carry one’s baby to term. It’s an enticing option that puts Rachel (Emilia Clarke), who works for an A.I. company, and her husband Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a botanist frustrated by society’s disconnect from nature, at odds with each other.As the couple, played with a terrific chemistry by Clarke and Ejiofor, hesitantly opt into the process, the film satirizes our fetishization of a digital utopia, one in which techno-capitalism is the solution to all things, from education and health care to patriarchy and, apparently, all the unsightly, inconveniencing aspects of womanhood (i.e., pregnancy and motherhood). While its heady themes yield commentary that is ultimately just a tad thin, Barthes’s satire is best enjoyed the way it’s made — without taking itself too seriously.Much of the fun comes simply in existing within the comedic dissonance between this absurdist reality and the dubiously soothing, richly observed utopia. The most telling and damning revelation can be found in considering the film’s immersive sci-fi world alongside its distant cousin that exists in Spike Jonze’s 2013 film “Her”: the differences in their sensibilities offer a portrait of the downward progression between the tech optimism of the early 2010s, when start-up culture was still considered cool, and the terrifyingly rapid, consuming forces that our digital future has become since.The Pod GenerationRated PG-13 for suggestive material, partial nudity and brief strong language. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘King Coal’ Review: A View From Appalachia

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      A coal miner’s daughter turned filmmaker profiles a region’s relationship with fossil fuel and presents a eulogy for a way of life.In her personal documentary “King Coal,” the director Elaine McMillion Sheldon records the modern traditions — beauty pageants, local football games and modest festivals — that commemorate the once dominant natural resource that powered central Appalachia. Through archival footage and vivid narration, Sheldon notes how the discovery of the precious black rock led to an economic boom that inspired a vibrant middle class in the 20th century, born from labor struggle. She also observes how the poisonous fossil fuel destroys the environment. The film is both a cumulative eulogy for a way of life and an examination of the climate crisis through witnessing the charred remains of these rural landscapes.“King Coal,” however, isn’t merely a remembrance. By following two girls, Lanie Marsh and Gabrielle Wilson, Sheldon also considers the future of this region, which, like many industrial corners of the United States, is still struggling to imagine its own economic possibilities.Sheldon’s film doesn’t answer what lies ahead. Rather the poignantly poetic rhythms and wistful insights of “King Coal” are meant to provide closure. Healing in her documentary can take form in on-the-nose metaphors, such as the film staging a literal funeral for the anthropomorphized King Coal, or move through subtler means, like the sharing of oral history by locals in several Appalachian states.Sheldon also locates the beauty, potentiality and sorrow of the region to its surrounding mountain ranges, from forested rolling hills to the mounds of coal on river barges. But in this melancholic, thoughtfully attuned cinematic essay, no mountain is more important than the people who are still confined to the claustrophobic tunnels of the past.King CoalNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘All Up in the Biz’ Review: Showtime’s Biz Markie Documentary

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      Biz Markie created hits like “Just a Friend” and influenced a wide range of rappers, many of whom remember him fondly in this Showtime documentary.Biz Markie’s death in 2021, at the way-too-young age of 57, robbed hip-hop — hell, robbed American music, period — of one of its most idiosyncratic and singular talents.“All Up in the Biz,” a new documentary directed by Sacha Jenkins, is a cogent, affectionate and largely apt tribute to Markie, the D.J. and rapper who was known as a gifted beatboxer.The documentary uses animation along with comedic and dramatic sketches to underscore Markie’s irresistibly antic nature. For instance, while there are no documentary scenes of his extended hospitalization before his death, the artist’s wife, Tara Hall, re-enacts the loving care she gave to her husband, who’s played in the dramatization by a bemused-looking puppet.Even as the movie portrays Markie — whose birth name was Marcel Theo Hall and who is frequently referred to by friends as “Mark” — as a clown prince whose humor was a way of deflecting and transcending a tough childhood, it charts the near-parallel development of Bronx-bred hip-hop and its Long Island brand, with Markie a stellar representative of the latter. In his early days, the rapper worked on his lyrics and delivery with the Juice Crew, a collective in Queens, before he released his first EP.With respect to commercial development, Markie was, as the cliché goes, crazy like a fox, even if his charms weren’t immediately appreciated. The entertainment veteran Bernard Alexander recalls hearing the eccentrically drippy “Just a Friend” in demo form and throwing the cassette off a hotel balcony. Months later it was Markie’s breakthrough single, and the burly, goofy guy behind it was a pop star.“You get a little jealous when someone loves hip-hop more than you do,” the rapper and record producer Rakim, a close friend, says here. “Biz made me jealous.”All Up in the BizNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Showtime platforms. More

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      ‘Between Two Worlds’ Review: Juliette Binoche Goes Undercover

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      In this social-justice drama, the French actress plays an investigative journalist who poses as a cleaner to expose worker exploitation.In “Between Two Worlds,” Juliette Binoche plays Marianne Winckler, a woman struggling to make ends meet in the Normandy region of France. When she arrives at an unemployment center at the start of the film, she’s sheepish and bewildered, selling herself as a “team player” to secure a minimum wage gig.In a voice-over, the details of her quest for steady work are articulated in a matter-of-fact tone. Subtly, the director Emmanuel Carrère reveals this social-justice drama’s real stakes: Marianne, an investigative journalist, has gone undercover. Her mission? To reveal the ways in which low-income workers are exploited — specifically women working graveyard shifts while under contract to private sanitation companies.The film is a loose adaptation of “The Night Cleaner” (2010), the nonfiction best seller by Florence Aubenas, a French journalist who went underground and lived a double life as a cleaner for an English Channel ferry.“Between Two Worlds,” written by Carrère and Hélène Devynck, departs from its source material with a fictional arc: Marianne, a savior figure driven to expose the system’s injustices, is also guilt-ridden about keeping her true identity a secret from her co-workers like Christèle (Hélène Lambert), an edgy single mother. This rift is echoed in the casting, with the usually glamorous Binoche acting alongside nonprofessional actors.Carrère — known primarily in Europe as a writer of nonfiction books with a literary twist — applies a mood of cool journalistic sobriety to Marianne’s scandalous discoveries. At her worst job, for instance, she’s forced to prepare over 100 beds in less than two hours. Less compelling is the sentimental crisis that plays out because of Marianne’s deception. It does little else beyond remind us that advocacy work is too often in a tango with a bad case of main-character syndrome.Between Two WorldsNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More