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      ‘El Agua’ Review: After the Flood, the Legends

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      This film from Elena López Riera follows what happens when floods drench a village in southeastern Spain.In the southeastern Spanish village where the director Elena López Riera grew up — and where her debut feature, “El Agua,” is set — water is both a boon and a curse. This dry region doesn’t get enough rain for its lemon and orange crops, but when it does pour, there are frequently devastating floods. And as is often the case with forces we cannot control or understand, it’s the village’s women who are blamed for nature’s caprices.In “El Agua,” aquatic myths ensnare the teenage dreams of 17-year-old Ana (Luna Pamies). In a series of documentary interviews interspersed throughout the film, locals relate the myth of the women who have water “inside them,” who disappear whenever a flood arrives. Then there is the curse that supposedly afflicts Ana, her mother (Nieve de Medina) and her grandmother (Bárbara Lennie), three fiercely independent women who live together. Ana yearns to leave the stifling village and finds hope in the mysterious José (Alberto Olmo), who claims to have returned to the village after a trip abroad.The movie weaves together several threads, of which Ana’s coming-of-age is the weakest: Her adolescent rebellions and her fling with José play out rather predictably, never quite evoking the lust or portent that the film’s folklore suggests. But “El Agua” succeeds as a portrait of the village’s traditions, both manual and cultural, brought to life by a largely nonprofessional cast (including Pamies, a striking discovery). Scenes involving pigeon races, farmers working the land with their hands, and women caring for and grooming each other all glow with a tactile sense of naturalism, which makes the documentary footage of floods that closes the film all the more gutting.El AguaNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Zoey 102’ Review: Grown Up, Washed Up

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      15 Years after her Nickelodeon show, “Zoey 101,” ended, Jamie Lynn Spears returns in a serviceable movie sequel.When the Nickelodeon show “Zoey 101” ended its four-season run, in 2008, Zoey (Jamie Lynn Spears) finally got together with Chase (Sean Flynn), putting a fairy tale ending on a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship that fascinated a large slice of early-2000s tweens. A decade and a half later, in “Zoey 102,” a movie-length sequel to (and update of) the show, the two have become estranged. Years before, Zoey ghosted Chase during a trip to Hawaii.Yet the biggest surprise of this serviceable revival, directed by Nancy Hower (the show was created by Dan Schneider), is that Zoey has become a bit of a washed-up has-been. She used to be the pretty, popular center of attention at Pacific Coast Academy, where the original show was set; now, she’s an overworked television producer flailing in her love life. Zoey is forced to see many of her old friends again at the wedding of Quinn (Erin Sanders) and Logan (Matthew Underwood), the subjects of a B-plot romance in the original show. To impress Chase, Zoey hires a man (Dean Geyer) to pose as her boyfriend.It’s not an easy task to make a movie out of a kids’ show from a bygone era, but the film does a relatively smooth job of dipping into — but not overdoing — the nostalgia and retaining the lighthearted, wacky tone that was the show’s signature. It helps that the cast members, now older, are better performers. Even if there’s a ceiling to how much can be achieved here, returning fans wanting a reminder of their youths will get just enough of what they came for.Zoey 102Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘North Circular’ Review: A Musical Tour of Dublin

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      In this black-and-white documentary by Luke McManus, the camera finds stories and songs near a road north of the city’s center.The discursive documentary “North Circular” takes viewers on a tour of the history, music and geography of Dublin. The title refers to North Circular Road, which forms an arc that passes north of the city’s center, and that offers a loose map for the film’s themes. Directed by Luke McManus and shot in a ghostly black-and-white, “North Circular” finds stories and songs near the thoroughfare’s path.The camera sits in on sessions of traditional Irish folk singing at the Cobblestone, a pub — not on the road, but five minutes away — that has been an important site for the revival of that musical genre. The folk musician John Francis Flynn says he believes that the scene owes something to people trying to root themselves in the city, “where everything’s been bought up around them.”Gentrification is a recurring subject. A woman reminisces about growing up in O’Devaney Gardens, a public-housing complex razed to make way for new apartments. A squatter reflects on the lonely death of the resident who lived in his building before he did. The singer Gemma Dunleavy strives to create a “sonic time capsule” of Sheriff Street, near the docks, where, she says, what was “built with broken hands” is being taken away by development.A man notes that North Circular Road is the last public road a person is on when entering or exiting Mountjoy Prison. Incarceration has a long history in the area: We hear, both in narration and in song, about the 19th-century practice of imprisoning women for petty offenses, and sending them to Van Diemen’s Land — present-day Tasmania — to help breed the colonizing populace.The songs, a mix of English and Irish, contribute to a plaintive, lulling mood. Not all the material is equally striking, but the film has an original and at times disarming approach to bearing witness.North CircularNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Beanie Bubble’ Review: Caught in a Fad Romance

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      This dramatic comedy about Beanie Babies, starring Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Snook, arrives at the tail end of a summer of corporate biopics.John Updike once described writing as a matter of “taking a deep breath, leaning out over the typewriter and trying to drive a little deeper than the first words that come to mind.” Unfortunately, the writing in “The Beanie Bubble,” a dramatic comedy based loosely on the true story of the short-lived Beanie Baby toy craze, sits on the surface.This is a movie that uses stock footage of the Bill Clinton inauguration and the O.J. Simpson trial to demonstrate that it’s the 1990s, and which, to show a flashback to the ’80s, has a character ask, “Did you pick up any Tab?” It deploys every storytelling cliché in the book, from “you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation”-style voice-overs to pat last-act monologues that reiterate the themes.The story of Beanie Babies is not especially interesting: In 1993, Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis), the creator of Beanie Babies, introduced the plush animal dolls for $5, and then, owing to a confluence of opportune internet savvy and a nascent secondary market on the web, they became coveted for their scarcity.“The Beanie Bubble” contrives to add intrigue by embellishing various personal dramas behind the scenes at the company, including infidelities, a fraught love triangle and the ethical quandaries of three women who worked with Warner and in some cases were involved with him romantically: Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Sheila (Sarah Snook) and Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan).Each of these women has exactly one defining feature — they’re eager to get rich; they love their children; they know a lot about computers — and they mention this feature every single time they’re onscreen. The directors, Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Jr., make several embarrassing efforts to cast them as feminist superheroes at odds with the cluelessly patriarchal Warner, which might have been more effective had they been fleshed out as anything more than paper-thin Girl Boss caricatures. As it stands, the celebratory montages that herald these women’s professional triumphs are about as rousing as a Sheryl Sandberg TED Talk.Much of the film’s running time is dedicated to graphics detailing Beanie Baby sales figures, archival news footage showing mall shoppers going crazy and oversimplified explanations of Beanie-related milestones and achievements, such as how the company became an early pioneer of e-commerce.These elements are, of course, reminiscent of “Air,” “Tetris,” “Flamin’ Hot” and “Blackberry,” among other recent making-of marketing pictures. It’s not the fault of “The Beanie Bubble” that it arrives at the tail end of a summer of similar corporate biopics, but seen after so many other marketing making-of dramas, the familiar beats of novel invention to overnight phenomenon can’t help but feel all the more hackneyed.Like those films, “The Beanie Bubble” attempts to extrapolate some more substantive social meaning from what is otherwise an amusing but ultimately insignificant moment in time. The best it can do is to conclude, feebly, that there will “always be another fad,” with references to cryptocurrency and NFTs. This conclusion is hard to square with the movie’s earlier claim that the Beanie Baby craze ushered in “a new era of capitalism,” but that paradox is typical of its shaky approach. In any given moment, the movie is either overstating the importance of its subject or trivializing it.Can we learn anything from this? “The Beanie Bubble” proves that there will always be movie fads, but some of them will be worse than others.The Beanie BubbleRated R for strong language and some mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘The Beasts’ Review: Bad Neighbors

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      Class tensions and masculine power games abound in this engrossing rural thriller from Spain.“The Beasts,” an engrossing rural thriller by the Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, has a deeper take on the class tensions of most hill-people horror movies. Antoine (Denis Mé nochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs), a middle-class French couple, have recently settled in the Galician village of Ourense, where they run a modest farm and spend their surplus of free time rebuilding dilapidated homes. Their neighbors, Xan (Luis Zahera) and Lorenzo (Diego Anido), a tetchy pair of middle-aged brothers, despise them. A Swedish wind-turbine company has offered to pay out the village’s residents should they approve the installment of an energy farm on the land — by voting “no,” Antoine and Olga deny the impoverished brothers what for them would be a considerable sum.From here unfolds a slow-burn saga of murder and vengeance that draws inspiration from “Deliverance” and its crisis of masculinity — though “The Beasts,” a piece of art-house social-realism as well as a nail-biter, isn’t big on explicit violence. Tensions build as Antoine butts heads with the brothers at the local watering hole, the divide between outsiders and locals accentuated by their language barrier (Antoine’s Spanish is shaky). The brothers are definitely crooks, yet the script by Isabel Peña and Sorogoyen captures an unexpectedly complex balance of power. Xan and Lorenzo may be two, but they’re like scrawny hyenas next to Antoine’s mammoth frame.A second-act twist shifts the story to Olga’s perspective. The sharp social commentary peters out in place of hackneyed parent-child friction when the couple’s daughter, Marie (Marie Colomb), pays an extended visit. The stately Foïs carries the film as it devolves into a restrained drama about familial loyalty and womanly fortitude, its change of gears not entirely clicking into place.The BeastsNot rated. In Spanish, Galician and French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 17 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Susie Searches’ Review: The Sleuth Is Out There

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      Kiersey Clemons plays an amateur detective with a true-crime podcast and a secret in this quirky mystery movie.Cinematic plays on the true-crime podcast craze are about as fresh as warmed-over veggie patties, yet “Susie Searches,” the debut feature film from Sophie Kargman, uses the trend to launch a satisfying if familiar mystery movie. Susie (Kiersey Clemons) is a college overachiever who in her spare time works at a burger joint, volunteers at the sheriff’s office and hosts a podcast investigating cold cases. This vast extracurricular catalog populates the story with an array of oddballs who, soon enough, make for a quirky cast of suspects when Jesse (Alex Wolff), a New Age influencer and campus celebrity, goes missing.A practiced amateur sleuth, our protagonist buckles down to crack the case. But once Susie’s efforts anoint her as a local hero, Kargman — along with the film’s screenwriter William Day Frank — abruptly flips the script. We learn that Susie is not quite the detective she claims to be, and her do-gooder facade veils more selfish motives. As her lies pile up, Susie becomes riddled with guilt, and the small-town eccentrics surrounding her transform from potential criminals into potential criminal informants.Kargman marks this transition with a playful approach to camera movement and framing, making use of quick turns, collaged jump cuts and split screen. “Susie Searches” is more than comfortable drawing on the staid tropes of its genre, particularly those that paint mental illness as a path to depravity. But despite its narrative shortcomings, the film builds a tense and mischievous mood that acts as its hook.Susie SearchesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Talk to Me’ Review: Letting the Wrong One In

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      A bereaved young woman falls under the spell of a dangerous artifact in this vibrant and poignant horror debut.Steeped in yearning and chockablock with shocks, “Talk to Me,” the first feature from the Australian filmmaking brothers Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, is a horror movie huddled tightly around a story of filial grief. The result is an enduring melancholy that no amount of ghouls or gore can entirely dispel.A shifting weave of tones and textures, the movie owes much of its potency to Sophie Wilde’s continually evolving lead performance as Mia, an anxious teenager barely coping with her mother’s death a year earlier. Unable to connect with her emotionally distant father (Marcus Johnson), Mia has created a surrogate family with her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and Jade’s younger brother, Riley (a remarkable Joe Bird). Yet Mia remains alienated, hanging awkwardly apart from her raucous, thrill-seeking friends, wearing her bereavement like a scarlet letter.An opportunity to belong arises at a rambunctious house party, where a new game involving an embalmed hand — frozen in the handshake position and supposedly chopped from a long-dead medium — is being played. The rules are simple: Grip the hand, say “Talk to me,” and a ghost will appear. If you are then brave enough to tender an invitation, the entity will obligingly possess you while your guffawing friends, smartphones at the ready, gleefully capture its disturbing, sometimes embarrassing behavior. The spirit’s move-in is easy; the eviction is where things get sticky.Distinguished by wonderfully gooey practical effects and deeply distressing visual jolts (especially when young Riley falls under the hand’s malignant influence), “Talk to Me” has a hurtling energy that’s often violent but never purposefully cruel. The film’s ideas are not novel, or even fully formed (the narrative has more holes than a lace doily); yet by choosing simplicity over specifics, the filmmakers free themselves from the weight of words and open up space for a mood of intense disquiet and unusual sensitivity. Their empathy for Mia — whose longing for connection has blinded her to the game’s deceptions and dangers — is unexpectedly touching.Unsettlingly attuned to familiar teenage behavior (the movie’s scariest aspect may be its plausibility), “Talk to Me” refuses to view the youngsters’ addiction to the hand, and the online attention it attracts, with satirical remove: Even the film’s jokes feel strangely tender. And thanks to the snaking skills of the cinematographer Aaron McLisky, the movie’s action — like a stunning opening sequence that caused my jaw to drop — is swift without seeming slapdash. Scurrying excitedly through rowdy crowd scenes, McLisky’s camera nimbly differentiates key players, keeping our eyes on the plot and chaos at bay.Spooky and sad, kinetic and occasionally clumsy, “Talk to Me” is far from perfect but close to fine. Watching Mia enjoy a fleeting moment of joy as she and Riley belt out Sia’s “Chandelier” in a car before screeching to a halt beside a mortally injured kangaroo, we sense a mounting inevitability. Wherever this journey is taking her, we can’t help but feel she’s been heading there for a very long time.Talk to MeRated R for dog-snogging, toe-sucking and stabbing-stabbing-stabbing. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The First Slam Dunk’ Review: Style Points

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      A popular sports manga about a Japanese high school basketball team vaults to the big screen in an exhilarating, gorgeous anime.“The First Slam Dunk” is a great basketball movie because it understands what’s great about basketball. When a character catches a pass, drives toward the paint, steps back, squares up and releases a clutch 3-pointer, the movie slows time, drops the sound and homes in on exactly the right detail — the perfect, crystalline swish of the ball passing through the basket and gently grazing the net.Bringing all of the kinetic, over-the-top style of Japanese anime to bear on the granular, technical athleticism of high school ball, “The First Slam Dunk” is a one-of-a-kind sports drama somewhere between “Hoop Dreams” and “Dragon Ball Z.” You’d expect a movie with that title to have some pretty spectacular jams, and you’d be right. What surprised and delighted this N.B.A. obsessive is that it dazzles just as much with passes and rebounding. This feels like real basketball.Based on the long-running and beloved Weekly Shonen Jump manga “Slam Dunk,” and written and directed by the manga’s writer and illustrator, Takehiko Inoue, “The First Slam Dunk” centers on the starting lineup of the Shohoku High School basketball team as it competes for the national championship. The entirety of the film’s two-hour run time takes place over the course of this one game, broken up by flashbacks that give insight into the lives of the players, including the troubled point guard Ryota (Shugo Nakamura) and the self-centered power forward Hanamichi (Subaru Kimura).The flashbacks are well-written and add off-the-court dramatic interest, but it’s the basketball action that is the movie’s claim to excellence. Expertly staged and beautifully rendered using a combination of computer-generated imagery and traditional hand-drawn animation, it’s often so spectacular that I am eager to watch again.The First Slam DunkRated PG-13 for mild language and some dark themes. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters. More