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      ‘Theater Camp’ Review: Cabin Into the Woods

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      In this bitterly-funny mockumentary set at a drama institute, the actors feel their characters in their bones.“Acting,” the Tony winner Ben Platt opines in character, “is remembering and choosing to forget.” “Theater Camp,” a fizzy mockumentary about growing up Gershwin, does both. Platt wrote it with three longtime pals, Molly Gordon (friends since toddlerhood), Nick Lieberman (friends since high school) and his fiancé, Noah Galvin, who, like Platt, played the lead role in Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen.” (Gordon and Lieberman also direct the film.) These former youth performers remember everything: desperate auditions, capricious rejections and a dawning concern that one’s dreams of stage success are as flimsy as spray-painted cardboard stars. But the camp counselors the four have created — exaggerations of ones they’ve known — disregard the trauma they’ve endured, and now, inflict on others. Call it summer Stockholm syndrome. And call their group therapy session a treat.Our setting is a drama institute named AdirondACTS, as scrawled in a tacky crayon font. Amos (Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Gordon) met here as children and, decades later, continue to haunt the one place that treats them like superstars. Broadway hasn’t beckoned. Nevertheless, every summer Amos and Rebecca-Diane hammer their wisdom into malleable minds.The careerist young campers are roughly the same maturity level as the adults. They’re also played by fantastic talents including Luke Islam, Alan Kim and Bailee Bonick, the latter of whom can hold a high note longer than the life span of a gnat. Still, the tykes know their role is to obediently absorb their coaches’ pep talks (“Peter Piper picked a priority”), threats (“This will break you”) and dubious opinions (“I do believe her as a French prostitute,” Amos whispers of a pigtailed 10-year-old).Failure wafts through the film, fastidiously unacknowledged. Here, a cruise ship callback and a repertory show in Sarasota represent the peak of achievable success. The grown-ups, who also include the costumer Gigi (Owen Thiele) and the dance instructor Clive (Nathan Lee Graham), resent any challenge to their artistic authority. “It says here you’re allergic to polyester,” Gigi huffs to a camper. “Why?” Later, when the story threatens to herd us toward that most hoary cliché — we gotta put on a show to save the school! — it’s a relief to realize that most characters can’t be bothered with that plot point, either. They’re creatives, babe. Capitalism is for clods like the owner’s son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a YouTube finance-bro who boasts of being an “en-Troy-preneur.”Gordon and Lieberman gesture faintly at a documentary structure. In the opening minutes, dry black-and-white intertitles barge into the action so often, you’re expecting them to claim that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. Soon after, the editing relaxes, the doc conceit wanders off and the film finds its rhythm as a string of bitterly funny vaudeville sketches that smack of Kool-Aid mixed with salt.Like many mostly improvised films, there’s a sense that half the story was abandoned on the cutting room floor. A late-breaking resolution hinges on a character who barely registers. Ayo Edebiri (from the television series “The Bear”) pops up as a first-time teacher with falsified experience in jousting and jugging — a promising gag, but she’s left to roam the margins, barely sharing any scenes with the rest of the cast. At one point, Galvin, playing a bashful stagehand, embarks on a tour of the cafeteria’s cliques. The scene stops at two. There’s just too much this film wants to cover.Clearly, the actors feel their characters in their bones. My favorite physical detail was how Platt’s Amos interrupts a bad rehearsal by leaping onstage in a showy frog hop, like Kermit giving ‘em the old razzle dazzle. How magical that, later, this floundering show-within-a-show is rescued when the children invest every ounce of moxie into belting Rebecca-Diane’s lame lyrics. Gusto can spin anything into gold.Theater CampRated PG-13 for spicy language and one adult slumber party. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Miracle Club’ Review: A Pleasant Pilgrimage

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      Set in 1967 Dublin, this mild-mannered comedy explores grief and grievances with an ensemble that includes Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.A camera soars above Dublin then glides toward a promontory where a solitary figure stands in front of a memorial plaque. A frothy score wrangles our emotions. Don’t get too sad, it seems to say, before the camera closes in on a sorrowful Lily Fox (Maggie Smith).Set in 1967, “The Miracle Club,” directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, touches on grief and grievances, on unwanted pregnancies and the Catholic Church, while wearing the guise of a redemptive romp. It’s a delicate balance that — even with the impressive triumvirate of Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney — the movie doesn’t always sustain.Lily’s sojourn is one of multiple pilgrimages in the movie. The central journey takes Lily and her two closest friends, plus the estranged daughter of a recently departed third, to Lourdes, France, where miracles are sought by masses of people each year. Agnes O’Casey plays Dolly, the youngest of the trio and the mother of a boy (Eric D. Smith) who seems unable to speak. But Dolly is not the only member of the group in need of a miracle.With her taut mouth and vigilant gaze, Linney is especially nuanced as Chrissie, the wounded but self-contained and observant interloper who returns from the United States after a 40-year rift. And amid the star power, O’Casey is something of a revelation as the upbeat but wavering Dolly.The actor Stephen Rea does fine, grumbling work as Frank, Eileen’s unhelpful husband who must step in and care for their many highly amused children. Will he have an epiphany about home and hearth? The movie leaves little doubt about the answer. Indeed, the menfolk left behind, and their needs and demands, would provide the women reason enough for a sojourn.Dispensing wisdom throughout, Father Dermot (Mark O’Halloran) persuades Chrissie to join the pilgrimage. Later, he’ll offer an impromptu homily on unmet expectations, one that is surprisingly apt for those hoping for a movie that transcends the pleasant. The filmmakers go for too-easy laughs; the movie doesn’t seem to trust its audience to sit with the pain, much less to find the achy humor in it, as a more assured film might. The actors here are good, but they are not miracle workers.The Miracle ClubRated PG-13 for thematic elements and mildly salty language. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Lakota Nation vs. United States’ Review: A 150-Year Clash

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      In 1980, the Lakota were offered money for their stolen Black Hills land. They refused to accept the settlement and continue to fight today.Three years after the discovery of gold nuggets on Lakota land in 1874, the Black Hills Act stripped the tribe of most of the acreage in the Dakotas and northwestern Nebraska it had been ceded by treaty decades earlier, making way for droves of fortune-seekers. Ever since, the Lakota people have been fighting to regain that land, a plight recorded in a new documentary, “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”This stunning film, directed by Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli, interleaves interviews of Lakota activists and elders with striking images of the Black Hills and its wildlife, historical documents and news reports, clips from old movies and other archival footage to extraordinary effect, demonstrating not only the physical and cultural violence inflicted on the Lakota but also their deep connection to the Black Hills, the area where Mount Rushmore was erected. (One activist, Krystal Two Bulls, describes the monument as “the ultimate shrine to white supremacy.”) The film covers well known instances of erasure and oppression, such as colonization and Standing Rock, but also lesser known injustices, such as the fate of the Dakota 38, in which dozens of men were executed by the U.S. Army in 1862 for rising up against the government.In 1980, the Lakotas’ case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted them remuneration for the lost land. But the Lakota people refused to accept the money and continue to do so, even as the settlement’s value has increased to more than $1 billion today. What they are fighting for is the land itself. Phyllis Young, one of the Lakota elders interviewed in the film, calls it their Mecca. “The land and the people,” she said, “are inextricably connected.Lakota Nation vs. United StatesRated PG-13 for violent images and thematic elements and strong language. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters. More

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      ‘Have You Got It Yet?’ Review: A Pink Floyd Enigma Illuminated

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      The founding frontman of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett was irresistibly charismatic, but this crazy diamond didn’t shine for long, as this comprehensive portrait shows.The classic rock legends who died young are unfortunately numerous: Hendrix, Joplin, Cobain. Syd Barrett, a founder of Pink Floyd, lived to be 60 — hardly a ripe old age. But his artistic death, a protracted one, happened in his 20s, and he had become a recluse before he turned 30.The documentary “Have You Got It Yet? (The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd)” is long in the making — its co-director, Storm Thorgerson, an acclaimed album designer and a friend of Barrett’s, died in 2013 — but it’s as comprehensive and coherent an account of Barrett’s counterculture tragedy as one could hope for. And while the film, co-directed by Roddy Bogawa, illuminates Barrett to a greater degree than any other account I’ve come across, it maintains the artist’s enigma.Not out of romanticizing him; as enigmas go, Barrett was the real deal. In his brief public tenure as the face of Pink Floyd, Barrett didn’t overtly put out a messianic line like other rock stars of the era. But he was innately magnetic. David Gilmour, who took the guitar duties in Pink Floyd after Barrett could no longer function, was, like the other band members, a friend of Barrett’s from the early ’60s. He calls the man “fiercely intelligent” and says that, before Barrett was ravaged by drug abuse and mental illness, “life was just too easy for him, in a way.”He wrote songs about underwear snatchers, gnomes and the solar system. (Post-Barrett, Floyd became more grandiose, socially conscious and commercially huge.) His psychedelia had a strain of Edwardian whimsy, until it didn’t; one of his last Floyd songs was called “Scream Thy Last Scream” and it wasn’t kidding. The film intersperses frank talking head interviews — Thorgerson, whose company helped craft Floyd’s album covers, is, after all, speaking to his friends and collaborators here — with surreal allegoric scenes both trippy and dire. Barrett’s slide into acid casualty is heartbreaking, yet the man was so singular that one has to call this cautionary tale unique.Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink FloydNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Black Ice’ Review: A Troubled Hockey History

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      The Canadian filmmaker Hubert Davis amplifies the voices of hockey players of color and reveals the sport’s lesser-known pioneers in this smart, sensitive documentary.Hubert Davis’s “Black Ice” candidly and sensitively recounts the experiences of athletes of color in Canadian hockey, and racism endured at the hands of other players, coaches and fans. Letting the athletes speak for themselves, Davis balances infuriating and painful accounts of their experiences with a look at the extraordinary legacy of Canadian hockey players of color, which dates back to the Colored Hockey League founded in the 19th century.“Black Ice” feels analogous to Samuel Pollard’s recent documentary “The League,” which chronicles the achievements of Black baseball players in the United States. But Davis, a Canadian documentarian, zeros in on how hockey has been a vital part of his country’s identity, and what it has felt like for Canadian players of color who love the game to be told, from very young ages, that they do not belong.That reality clashes, the film explains, with both Canada’s self-perception as an ideal multicultural melting pot and hockey’s don’t-rock-the-boat team spirit. Akim Aliu, who in 2020 made news for speaking out about his coach’s racist slurs, is one of several men and women who testify to encountering offensive, exclusionary behavior at various levels of play — not just in the National Hockey League — while drawing on support from friends and family.The fascinating story of the Colored Hockey League, which pioneered fundamentals of the game (including the slapshot), is richly and revealingly intertwined with that of Africville, a Black community outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, razed amid protests in the 1960s. Showing programs to train programs to train young athletes of color and expand the ranks, Davis points toward a different future for hockey.Black IceRated R for strong language, including racial slurs. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Gray Matter’ Review: Unusual Abilities, the Usual Plot Possibilities

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      Things don’t go well when a teenage girl with mental superpowers ends up at a secret facility in this Max movie entirely devoid of suspense or character.Meko Winbush’s “Gray Matter” is the kind of run-of-the-mill sci-fi thriller that usually delights insomniac Tubi watchers at 3 a.m. Unfortunately, the movie is coming out under a harsh glare that does it no favors: Not only is it on the prestige streamer Max, but it premieres that same day as the 10-episode “Project Greenlight: A New Generation,” which documents its production process. This latest iteration of the docuseries created in 2001 has been rebooted under the aegis of Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani and Gina Prince-Bythewood; the show might end up being entertaining, but “Gray Matter” is by-the-numbers, by-committee product.Written by Philip Gelatt (the television series “Love, Death & Robots”), the movie follows the 16-year-old Aurora (Mia Isaac), who is sheltered from the outside world by her protective mother, Ayla (Jessica Frances Dukes, from “Ozark”). Ayla has been training her daughter to better control her “psionic” powers, which include telekinesis and telepathy (teleportation is advance-seminar level). One evening the teenager sneaks out to meet friends she’s made in secret and ends up losing control over her abilities, blowing the women’s careful constructed cover. The obligatory mysterious guy (Garret Dillahunt) whisks Aurora to a facility he describes as a safe haven for psionics — where this is going is predictable and dull.It’s not so much that “Gray Matter” is formula, but that it is clumsily made formula. Except, that is, for Isaac’s performance. The young actress projects a rare serious-mindedness that grounds the movie. Like a mentalist making a chunk of concrete magically levitate, Isaac almost keeps “Gray Matter” watchable.Gray MatterNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      ‘Bird Box Barcelona’ Review: Blind Faith

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      The blindfolds are back in this companion movie to Susanne Bier’s 2018 original as a traumatized man finds horrifying purpose in mass slaughter.In the mildly entertaining Sandra Bullock vehicle, “Bird Box,” alien invaders were presumed so fearsome to behold that all who gazed upon them immediately offed themselves. Possibly to save audiences from a similar fate, we were never permitted to see these terrors, leaving us as sightless as the movie’s scrabbling survivors.Another day, another postapocalyptic hellscape. Transplanting the basic premise to Spain, the directors Àlex Pastor and David Pastor have come up with a spinoff feature, “Bird Box Barcelona,” minus Bullock but with the addition of a rather nifty — and depressingly credible — faith-based twist. Nine months after the aliens’ arrival, an engineer named Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his young daughter (Alejandra Howard) are searching for survivors in a city where the remaining humans are as feared as the invaders. Yet as Sebastián gains the trust of successive ragtag groups, he soon reveals a purpose that’s far more terrifying than robbery.Shooting in and around Barcelona, the cinematographer Daniel Aranyó conjures an atmospheric dystopia of blasted buildings and ruined roadways. The dead and dying are everywhere, challenging the movie’s special-effects team to create ever-more-horrible avenues of self-harm. As Sebastián and an English psychologist (Georgina Campbell) seek refuge on a mountaintop fortress accessible solely by cable car, flashbacks illuminate the genesis of his twisted mission and the subtly shifting powers of the intruders.The result is a bleakly hopeless view of human nature that the finale, while cracking the door to a further expansion of the story, fails to refute. In that context, the introduction of religion as a central theme makes perfect sense: Who needs aliens, when belief has always been unrivaled in its ability to turn man against his brother?Bird Box BarcelonaNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Two Tickets to Greece’ Review: Advisory Travel

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      Former middle-school friends with clashing temperaments take an Aegean excursion in this contrived French fluff.In “Two Tickets to Greece,” Blandine (Olivia Côte), a depressed and divorced Frenchwoman, is pushed by her son to take a Hellenic excursion with Magalie (Laure Calamy), the middle-school best friend she lost touch with decades earlier. Magalie, now a free-spirited, impulsive music journalist, can find fun anywhere. Blandine, a buttoned-up radiology technician embittered by her ex-husband’s remarriage, seems incapable of experiencing fun at all.As teenagers, the two had planned to travel to the Greek island Amorgos, which entranced them in the 1988 movie “The Big Blue.” But when Magalie skimps on ferry tickets, the barely reunited pals wind up waylaid on a different, tiny island populated almost exclusively by archaeologists and surfers. And while Magalie will turn any location into a makeshift disco, Blandine, who refrains from a fling with a Belgian surfer, remains a stick in the Aegean mud.Calamy has by far the livelier part, and the energy dissipates whenever Magalie isn’t drawing attention to herself. When she and Blandine reach Mykonos, the movie brings aboard Kristin Scott Thomas — largely speaking fluent French — as Bijou, a hippie jewelry designer hiding from a British upper-crust background (and living with an artist played by Panos Koronis, of “The Lost Daughter” and “Before Midnight”).Bijou becomes an unofficial referee and wisdom dispenser for the central pair, as well as a facile expository device for the writer-director, Marc Fitoussi. Blandine — “bland,” per Bijou — and Magalie never totally reconcile their conflicting instincts, but “Two Tickets to Greece” is still pretty dopey and contrived, even if the scenery isn’t bad.Two Tickets to GreeceNot Rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More