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      ‘Moving On’ Review: Cracking Jokes and Settling Scores

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      Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda team up in an awkward comedy about two women contemplating the murder of a predatory man.Let me say right up front that I would happily watch Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in anything — except for maybe that one about the football player. Their comic partnership, inaugurated back in 1980 with “Nine To Five” and honed during the seasons of “Grace and Frankie,” is one of the blessings of modern pop culture. It is certainly the main pleasure of “Moving On,” an otherwise thin and muddled new film directed by Paul Weitz.Weitz, who directed Tomlin in the sublime “Grandma” and the misguided “Admission” — the high points of his up-and-down filmography are still “About a Boy” and “In Good Company” — has a style that’s by turns genial and prickly. He embeds laughter in the possibility and sometimes the fact of real pain, and extends even his most wayward characters the benefit of the doubt.Tomlin and Fonda hardly need that. They play Evelyn and Claire, two college pals whose paths cross at the funeral of another old friend. Claire (Fonda), devoted to her pet corgi and a bit chillier with her daughter and grandson, travels from Ohio to Southern California with a sinister plan. She is going to murder the bereaved husband, Howard (Malcolm McDowell). Claire announces this to anyone who will listen, including Howard himself and Evelyn (Tomlin), who signs up as an accomplice.Howard seems like a generally unpleasant guy, but the reason for Claire’s grudge is grimly specific. It becomes clear fairly early on that “Moving On” is operating in strange and risky genre territory. If the phrase “rape-revenge comedy” sounds like an oxymoron, this movie won’t convince you otherwise. And even though you can’t help but root for the would-be killers to deliver a much-deserved comeuppance, this vengeance is oversweetened and served lukewarm.Fonda’s wary melancholy effectively communicates the persistence of trauma and Claire’s long-suppressed rage at the man who inflicted it. Tomlin, in the familiar role of bohemian sidekick — Evelyn is a retired cellist — is less flaky than Frankie, and not quite as steely as Elle in “Grandma.” “People think I’m being funny when I’m just talking,” Evelyn observes, which is a pretty good summary of Tomlin’s own comic genius.But Weitz’s script doesn’t give her that much to say, and wavers between silliness and social consciousness without making room for its story. There are reminiscences about the past, but no sense of the weight of lived experience. A few tender encounters — notably Claire’s romantic reconnection with her first husband, Ralph (Richard Roundtree) and Evelyn’s friendship with the gender-nonconforming grandson of a neighbor — gesture toward an emotional complexity that never fully blossoms.Something else is missing here — a farcical energy or satirical audacity that might shock the premise to unsettling life, or else a deeper, darker core of feeling. “Moving On” takes refuge in pleasantness, and in the easy charm of its stars. Who are, as I’ve said, consistently enjoyable to watch. Which might be the problem.Moving OnRated R. “Rape-revenge comedy.” Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Inside’ Review: Tortured Artist, Meet Tortured Man

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      Willem Dafoe stars as an art thief who gets trapped in a penthouse in this drama.The art thief (a brutish Willem Dafoe) trapped in a megamillionaire’s extravagant loft knows the value of the bronze wedge he’s damaging in a desperate attempt to pry open the door. It’s one of the few pieces he intended to steal from the smart home before its security pad failed and the exits locked shut. But Vasilis Katsoupis, the director of the stark survival thriller “Inside,” deliberately withholds that the makeshift crowbar is meant to be the Lynn Chadwick piece “Paper Hat,” last auctioned at 2.5 million pounds. Katsoupis prefers his moral challenge incalculable: Do we want the art to endure or the criminal?Playing fair, the filmmaker also refuses to share details about the burglar. Blessedly, there are no flashbacks to the robber’s mother, no panic about a spouse or cat, and not much voice-over aside from a couple of lines establishing that the man once fancied himself an artist, too. I wouldn’t have known his name was Nemo if not for the end credits — good thing, as I’d have giggled when he made sashimi of the tropical fish.The logic behind Nemo’s captivity doesn’t gel. (Alarm sirens screech with not one visit from the security desk? Who do they summon, Batman?) Katsoupis and the screenwriter Ben Hopkins aren’t concerned with making a credible heist caper. Katsoupis is more of a snotty provocateur with the elegance to posture as deep. He sneers at the rich, stocking the stony apartment with futile luxuries that give it the feel of a pharaoh’s tomb. The fridge contains only caviar, truffle sauce and booze; worse, it blares the “Macarena” to remind users to shut the door. (There are just three musicians on the film’s soundtrack — John Cage, Radiohead, and those forbidden dancers Los Del Rio — the cinematic equivalent of a challenge on “Chopped.”) At the same time, the fritzing control system cuts the water and cranks the heat to 106 degrees. So-called smart tech — the practical opposite of fine art — is the closest thing to a villain. This computer isn’t self-aware like Hal 9000. Still, Stanley Kubrick would say he warned us not to hand our house keys to Siri.The contemporary art curator Leonardo Bigazzi shrewdly selected the work that lines the walls. A photo of a duct-taped man mocks the prisoner’s plight. Overpriced neon tubes are there so we can look forward to seeing them smashed. Our knee-jerk guesstimations of worth are continually pranked. Take when a starving Nemo finds a few oranges. They’re moldy. (Worthless.) Wait, they’re concrete sculptures. (Insultingly worthless!) Nemo hurls the concrete at the windows. (Oh! Maybe they’re useful after all?) A hungry man can’t care that the oranges’ sculptor, Alvaro Urbano, intended to comment on cultural rot during the Franco dictatorship.So it’s disruptive, and then cathartic, to watch Dafoe’s primal performance dominate this museum/mausoleum and force us to side with humanity. He’s perfectly cast in a part that calls for quietly whirring intelligence. Plus, he’s the rare movie star with the kind of brutal bone structure that would have inspired the Expressionist painter Egon Schiele — who has several pieces here — to grab his paintbrush. (The unpleasant close-up of Nemo’s bowel movements in the bathtub, however, only works as a nod to Andres Serrano.)The film abandons its tempo somewhere after the eighth sunset, when the days begin to blend together and Katsoupis slathers on unnecessary hallucinations. When boredom sets in, we’re offered the silence to contemplate our own definition of art as Nemo the criminal evolves into Nemo the creator. His towering escape contraptions are tools. His haunting wall doodles are therapy. They’re both awarded as much reverence as everything with a price tag.InsideRated R for nude and crude imagery. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Spirit of ’45’ Review: Here Comes Nationalization

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      A documentary from Ken Loach sees the end of World War II as a brief moment of possibility for socialism in Britain.“The Spirit of ’45” is, atypically, a documentary from Ken Loach, whose tireless chronicles of Britain’s working class (“Kes,” “Sorry We Missed You”) have generally been dramas.It is also not new. The documentary had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2013 and opened in Britain shortly after that. Released for the first time in the United States, it is relevant in a perennial sense but somewhat dated. The people interviewed in this movie could not know that their despised Tories would still hold power today. (The 2016 Brexit vote — indeed, any mention of the European Union — is also conspicuous by its absence.)The film’s central idea is that Britain had reached a rare moment of possibility after World War II and the general election of 1945, when the Labour leader Clement Attlee became prime minister with an avowedly socialist agenda. Loach charts the nationalization of Britain’s health service, transportation sectors and coal mines. Britons who remember the changes share stories of how those shifts and new plans for quality housing almost universally improved their lives (although there is mention of some missed opportunities with the mines). “The Spirit of ’45” then flashes forward to show how the conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her successors rolled those policies back.As in much of his recent fiction work (including the Palme d’Or-winning “I, Daniel Blake”), Loach largely ignores counterarguments. Even viewers sympathetic to his politics may roll their eyes at how infrequently the film acknowledges trade-offs and price tags, except when the costs relate to the inefficiencies of privatization. There is a powerful historical case to be made here, but it requires engaging with nuance, not merely expressing conviction.The Spirit of ’45Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Broadway’s ‘Room,’ Starring Adrienne Warren, Postpones Run Indefinitely

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      The show, scheduled to open in April at the James Earl Jones Theater, was adapted from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling 2010 novel.In a surprise move, a new Broadway show that had already begun rehearsals announced on Thursday morning that its run this spring has been scuttled because of a money shortfall.“Room,” adapted from an Emma Donoghue novel that had already been turned into an acclaimed film, was to start performances in 18 days, with the Tony winner Adrienne Warren starring. There was already a marquee illuminated outside the James Earl Jones Theater, and tickets were on sale.The collapse, although not unprecedented, was startling, and comes at a time when the capitalization costs for Broadway shows have been rising, and some producers have had a harder time raising those funds. “Room” had been seeking to raise up to $7 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Hunter Arnold, who was producing “Room” with Sam Julyan and James Yeoburn, blamed fund-raising woes for the production’s shut down, which he described as an indefinite postponement.“In the midst of our rehearsals we were informed by one of our lead producers that due to personal reasons, they did not intend to fulfill their obligations to the production,” he said. “Since being notified, the rest of the producing team has exhausted all possible avenues to keep the show on track, but the narrow timeline and economic shortfall created by this series of events has proven to be insurmountable.”(This has been a rough season for Arnold: The SEC said in September it was investigating whether two of his partners had misled investors, but he said that investigation has since been dropped.)“Room” is the story of a young boy raised in a shed where he and his mother are held captive by a sexual predator; the novel, released in 2010, was a best seller, and the film came in 2015. The show, written by Donoghue with songs by Cora Bissett and Kathryn Joseph, had been staged several times in the British Isles and in Canada starting in 2017; Warren, who won the Tony in 2021 for starring as Tina Turner in the “Tina” biomusical, was to play the boy’s mother on Broadway.The last time a Broadway show imploded this close to opening was in 2016, when “Nerds” collapsed, also citing fund-raising woes. And in 2012, the musical “Rebecca” collapsed, also citing money trouble; that show’s troubles led to litigation. More

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      Final Sondheim Musical Will Be Staged in New York This Fall

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      His long-gestating final show, now titled “Here We Are,” is coming to the Shed; it is inspired by two Luis Buñuel films.Stephen Sondheim’s long-in-the-works Luis Buñuel musical, which he described as unfinished just days before his death, will be staged in New York this fall, giving audiences the chance to see the final show by one of the most important artists in musical theater history.The musical, now titled “Here We Are,” is inspired by two Buñuel films, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics; the book is by the playwright David Ives (“Venus in Fur”), and Joe Mantello (“Wicked”) will direct.The show, scheduled to begin performances in September, will be a commercial Off Broadway venture, produced by Tom Kirdahy (“Hadestown”) in a 500-seat theater at the Shed, a multidisciplinary arts venue in Hudson Yards. The Shed, a nonprofit, is being described as a co-presenter.It is not entirely clear when Sondheim began working on the show, but he first discussed it publicly in 2014, and there were delays and setbacks in the years following. He talked about it occasionally during public appearances; for a time it was called “Buñuel,” and then “Square One”; it was backed at various points by the commercial producer Scott Rudin and by the nonprofit Public Theater. And there were workshops over the years, including one in 2016, and one in 2021 featuring Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters; casting for the production at the Shed has not been announced, but there are no indications that Lane and Peters have remained with the project.In an interview days before his death in late 2021, Sondheim described it this way: “I don’t know if I should give the so-called plot away, but the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they can’t get out.”Sondheim described the show as incomplete, as did some of his collaborators in the days following his death. It is not clear what state it was in when he died, and what kind of work has been done to it since.Sondheim’s posthumous career has been booming. This season has featured Broadway revivals of “Into the Woods” (which opened last summer) and “Sweeney Todd” (which opens this month), as well as Off Broadway revivals of “Assassins” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” The “Merrily” revival is scheduled to transfer to Broadway in September, the same month that “Here We Are” is now expected to begin at the Shed. More

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      ‘Money Shot: The Pornhub Story’ Review: A Clear Eye on an Industry

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      This documentary looks at the offenses of the pornography industry through interviews with performers and activists.In December 2020, the journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column in the Opinion section of The New York Times detailing the stories of young survivors whose sexual abuse was posted on the website Pornhub. The piece, which urged the site to make changes, led to Pornhub’s banning of uploads from unverified users, and to Visa and Mastercard’s prohibiting the use of their cards on the website. Kristof’s article plays a complicated role in “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story,” a documentary on Netflix that shrewdly puts center stage some of the professional porn performers seeking autonomy in the industry.Through interviews with workers and their advocates (and with Kristof), the documentary filmmaker Suzanne Hillinger (who also produced and directed episodes of The Times’s “The Weekly,” a television show on FX, in 2019) persuasively argues that campaigns including Traffickinghub are aimed at curtailing abuse and helping victims but end up hurting another marginalized group: the sex workers and porn actors who thrive on these platforms, which enable them to work independently. Hillinger also spotlights the fact that some of the loudest anti-Pornhub voices have ties to the extreme political right‌.Recent years have seen a slew of streaming documentaries about tech-world horrors, from dating hoaxes to crypto schemes. “Money Shot” includes some clichés from this subgenre — if I see one more tweet pop up onscreen with the chirp sound effect, I will fly away myself — but it mostly pushes against tropes. Hillinger steers clear of re-enactments, and instead favors relaxed scenes with porn professionals. Here is a documentary that casts a clear eye on the offenses of an industry driven by capitalism while never losing sight of the workers whose safety and success should be that profession’s number one priority.Money Shot: The Pornhub StoryNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Boston Strangler’ Review: Chasing a Killer (and a Byline)

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      Keira Knightley plays a dogged journalist in this colorless true-crime drama streaming on Hulu.You don’t have to look further than the pedestrian title to guess that Matt Ruskin’s “Boston Strangler” is a spiritless affair. That title is a sigh of resignation, an I-have-nothing moan, a cold shoulder to the movie’s stars. Apparently, it doesn’t even warrant a definite article.Those stars — including Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon and Chris Cooper — probably expected better when they signed on for this trudge through a true-crime tale inspired by the infamous 1960s killings. Knightley plays Loretta McLaughlin, an ambitious lifestyles reporter with a yen for a zestier beat, who connects the dots between the first three murders and shames Boston homicide detectives into (albeit reluctantly) doing their jobs.The role is perfect for Knightley, who has always been able to slot seamlessly into earlier eras. But Ruskin’s wan, emotionless screenplay — shockingly bloodless for a movie about more than a dozen murders — fails to give the character a single believable relationship. Not with her silent children or supportive husband (Morgan Spector), who flicker on the film’s margins, symbols of domesticity denied. Nor with her testy boss (Cooper), who considers the dead women “nobodies” and would like McLaughlin to get back to her toaster reviews. And not with the more savvy journalist (Coon) who becomes McLaughlin’s partner-in-sleuthing.Despite the film’s flaccid gestures toward the sexism of the period — to boost sales, the women’s pictures are added to their bylines — “Boston Strangler” is a dreary, painfully stylized slog. Scared women scurry down cobbled streets; unseen dogs bark in the night. Washed in an unappetizing sludge of grayish green, the movie aims for serious and settles on bilious. The real McLaughlin was a fascinating, pioneering newshound; you’re unlikely to find her here.Boston StranglerRated R for posed corpses and sickly complexions. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      ‘Drylongso’ Review: Extraordinary

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      Cauleen Smith’s 1998 movie, set in Oakland in the mid-90s, remains a vivid and prescient feature debut.“Drylongso” is a Gullah-language-derived word rooted in the African American coastal communities of Georgia and South Carolina that, over time, has come to mean “ordinary.” Yet the artist Cauleen Smith’s newly restored and rereleased 1998 feature debut, about a young photographer living with her mother and grandmother in Oakland, Calif., is anything but. Or, rather, the ordinary here has value beyond the same ol’. It’s evocative, tender and rooted — all descriptions of Smith’s film, too.By day, Pica (Toby Smith) studies art. By night, she avoids her mother’s smoky card parties by wheat-pasting activist fliers. A television in the room of her neglected grandmother warns of a serial killer targeting young Black men and women. But Pica is already acutely aware of peril: The headstrong student has been taking Polaroids of young Black men and bringing them to her 35mm-focused photography course. She’s documenting these men because, she tells her professor (played by Salim Akil, who wrote the film alongside Smith), they are in danger of becoming extinct.Smith braids politics, friendship and romance throughout “Drylongso.” Pica befriends a young woman, Tobi (April Barnett), after witnessing her being violently kicked to the curb by a male companion. The next time Tobi and Pica cross paths, Tobi has gone incognito in male garb. A potential suitor, Malik (Will Power), rides his bike, hawks homemade T-shirts and asks Pica repeatedly, “When you gonna take my picture, girl?”Loss will intervene. So will art. It’s not a mystery why this quiet wonder was lost in the Black cinema boom of the 1990s. The movie is rough-hewn as an artistic choice but also out of financial necessity; its D.I.Y. aesthetic mirrors the found scrap Pica uses to make meaningful memorials. But with its themes of Black endangerment (for both males and females) and its nuzzling of many genres (horror, romance, buddy flick), “Drylongso” returns to us utterly, subtly, chidingly prescient.DrylongsoRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More