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      ‘The Advent Calendar’ Review: A December Full of Tricks and Treats

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      In this Christmastime French horror film, a woman struggles against a powerful, old demon eager to rope her into a Faustian bargain.“The Advent Calendar,” from the writer-director Patrick Ridremont, has all kinds of nasty delights behind its doors. This fever dream of a film packs love potions, evil stepmothers, benevolent devils, voodoo, sex, alternate realities and more into its 104 minutes. It is bizarre and dizzying and oddly beautiful in its fervor, as fantastical props and effects distract from the nonsensical plot. But this script also clumsily insists that its protagonist, a woman named Eva (Eugénie Derouand) who uses a wheelchair, is murderously obsessed with overcoming her disability.The greatest achievement of “The Advent Calendar” (streaming on Shudder) is its titular prop, designed by Christine Polis, Benoit Polveche and Thierry Gillet. It’s a grand, medieval-looking thing decked out in secret compartments and paintings of saints. Eva receives it as a birthday gift from her friend, Sophie (Honorine Magnier), who snatched it up at a Munich market. The calendar immediately presents Eva with a set of rules: Eat all the candy in the calendar or you’ll die, follow all of the calendar’s instructions or you’ll die, don’t throw away the calendar or you’ll die.“Sounds grim,” Eva remarks.“Germans are grim,” Sophie counters.As December unfolds, the calendar tantalizes Eva with wealth, love and perhaps even the chance to walk again — but it also demands sacrifices.Eva is apparently willing to forgo all morality to regain the use of her legs, a dubious representation of disability at best (made all the more questionable by casting a non-disabled person in the role). “The Advent Calendar” is certainly aware of ableism — Eva withstands all manner of insulting comments from co-workers and strangers — yet it hinges on a bloodthirsty desire to rid Eva of her disability. Although the script attempts to justify that desire for this particular character, as an act of representation, the film leaves a sour taste — particularly given the already bleak landscape for disabled characters in the horror genre.The Advent CalendarNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

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      ‘Single All the Way’ Review: Cookie Cutter Christmas

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      This Netflix holiday rom-com rests its family-friendly shenanigans on a display of chemistry that never materializes.In the warmly intentioned, but unfortunately frosty romantic comedy “Single All the Way,” Peter (Michael Urie) is a perpetual bachelor who finally has a boyfriend to bring home to his family for the holidays.But when Peter’s beau turns out to be someone else’s husband, Peter convinces his best friend, Nick (Philemon Chambers), to visit over Christmas instead. Nick is well-loved by the family — so much so that they hatch a matchmaking scheme for the two singles. Peter’s holly-jolly mother, Carole (Kathy Najimy), cajoles, but his father, siblings and nieces push the pair to help with kooky Aunt Sandy (Jennifer Coolidge) and her Christmas play, in hopes that the two friends might realize they’re better off as lovers.The director Michael Mayer creates an appealing twinkly backdrop for holiday shenanigans. But the warm-and-fuzzies promised by this Christmas comedy (streaming on Netflix) depend on a display of suppressed passion from Peter and Nick that would propel family members to scheme for their romantic union. Unfortunately, the chemistry between the characters never materializes.Peter and Nick are exceedingly polite, and frequently kept at a respectful distance from each other within the frame. This otherwise cheery movie is stingy with the longing glances or lingering touches that might suggest subterranean longing. At times it’s difficult to believe the pair as best friends, let alone as secretly pining admirers. Even their names suggest their generic anonymity.This lack of chemistry makes for lonely viewing, as if the film exists within a universe where the entire concepts of flirting, sexual tension or even baseline human rapport have yet to be discovered. The supporting cast compensates with piquancy in the side dishes, but the main course is a flavorless misfire.Single All the WayNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Red Pill’ Review: The Horror of a Weekend of Racism and Extremism

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      Tonya Pinkins is in the director’s chair for this bizarre face-off between political opponents in which rhetoric is the least of the weapons.“Red Pill” begins with a frenzied scene of cult violence, with faceless women dressed in red brutalizing a pregnant Black woman. Then it takes a jarring step back in time to greener pastures. In a hat tip to “The Shining,” an aerial shot captures an S.U.V. making its way through winding backcountry roads. Just as agonizing as the screaming and blood of the opening, if not more so, is the conversation inside the car where members of a progressive canvassing group, on its way to recruit white female voters, talks politics nonstop.Cheery alternative rock music and a pit stop that involves the diverse group of friends’ tearing down a racist sign suggest that the filmmaker, the Tony-winning actress Tonya Pinkins, has satirical objectives. But this wonky political horror movie turns out to be painfully earnest and gauche to the point of confusion.The film takes place around Halloween, in the days leading up to the 2020 election. Nothing feels right at the Airbnb that Cassandra (Pinkins) and her pals arranged. It’s filled with creepy, portraits of googly-eyed animals, while in the surrounding neighborhood, white women in black uniforms stand at attention on their front lawns.Before too long, the friends — Nick is Jewish, Blake is Black, Bobby (the Grammy-winning musician Rubén Blades) is Latino — are hunted down and some are lynched. While Cassandra clearly suspects the violence is racially motivated, the other members fail to grasp the obvious.So is this B-movie camp? Stilted performances and a script seemingly generated by a machine certainly make things feel sillier than they ought to be, as does a nightmare sequence involving people dressed in lion costumes straight out of an amateur theater production. But the main issue is the film’s trite commentary on America’s political and racial divides (see also: last year’s “The Hunt”), which is neither funny, frightening, nor provocative. Just numbing.Red PillNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Wolf’ Review: Animal Behavior

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      This psychological thriller unfolds in a brutal clinic for young people who feel they are animals trapped in human bodies.In the most powerful scene in “Wolf,” a haunting psychological thriller, Jacob (George MacKay) kneels before a caged wild animal. Like the creature, Jacob feels trapped: He believes he is a wolf born as a human.His body isn’t his only cage. When the story begins, Jacob is committed to a conversion clinic run by a man called the Zookeeper (Paddy Considine). The institute’s young patients — who identify variously, including as a panda, squirrel and spider — endure therapies designed to tame and civilize them. It is no coincidence, however, that it is the overseers who come off as the savage brutes: To convince one resident that she is a girl, not a parrot, the Zookeeper dangles her out of a window and challenges her to fly.At first, Jacob is a vacant and uncomplaining patient. But some nights, he lets the wolf inside take over, his deltoids undulating as he prowls on all fours. He finds a companion in Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), a troubled, longtime resident of the center who bonds with Jacob on an animal level.Written and directed by Nathalie Biancheri, the movie maintains a mostly even tone. Despite dashes of uncanny humor, Biancheri directs with remove. The downside to this approach is that certain sequences tend to feel like acting exercises, and though MacKay and Depp perform with devoted bodily fervor, it’s hard to connect to their characters.Still, Biancheri’s imagery is consistently evocative, and her interest in how captivity affects dignity at times recalls the work of Yorgos Lanthimos. Only near the end will the story really give you pause, when it verges on explaining away species dysphoria as a trauma response. “Wolf” may lead with an open curiosity, but in tackling big ideas about identity, openness is not always enough.WolfRated R for dehumanization, desired or not. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Silent Night’ Review: Waiting for the End of the World

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      In this feature from Camille Griffin, a group of friends facing global disaster have one last Christmas dinner.Production of “Silent Night,” a survival horror film directed by Camille Griffin, started before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s hard not to watch and interpret it within that context.The film follows a group of friends who spend Christmas at an idyllic countryside cottage in rural England with Nell (Keira Knightley), Simon (Matthew Goode) and their three children. Behind the Christmas cheer, it’s clear that the world outside the cottage is in peril, and the friends have made a pact to make a drastic escape.The danger is never fully explained, but there appears to be a noxious cloud of toxins engulfing the Earth that painfully kills those exposed to it. Throughout, the children often serve as proxies for adults, engaging in political conversations while their parents reminisce or talk about who slept with whom in high school. Art (Roman Griffin Davis), one of Nell’s children, watches videos online that seem to contradict his parents’ messaging, and he starts to question their choices.The timing of “Silent Night” makes it destined to be viewed as a Covid-19 film, but it’s actually about climate change and the government’s inaction in the crisis. It’s an eerie movie that emphasizes the ways in which children are vulnerable to adults’ decisions, and how the wealthy skirt responsibility and protect their own. Most of the adult characters seem to be living inside a conspiracy theory, blinded by their own fear and resigned to their impending doom. But the characters, despite their histrionic representation of the wealthy class, are not compelling enough to carry the movie, nor are the horrors of the outside world fleshed out enough to frighten. Ultimately, the movie seems to ask: In the face of a dying world, should we give up or stay and fight?Silent NightNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters and on AMC+. More

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      ‘Benedetta’ Review: Habit Storming

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      Paul Verhoeven takes us to a nunnery where faith, eroticism and the Black Death make for an unholy good time.Close watchers of Paul Verhoeven’s career might conclude that he was always headed toward “Benedetta,” a movie torn equally between the sacred and the profane. Mania, masochism and a sex toy whittled from a figurine of the Blessed Virgin, they’re all here and more in this tale of a randy nun whose religious visions and lustful cravings are rolled into a single ball of blasphemy. In other words, Verhoeven might have aged (he’s now 83), but his love of the lurid has dimmed not one bit.Nor has his eye for juicy material. Ducking for cover behind the familiar legend, “Inspired by real events” (documented in Judith C. Brown’s 1986 book “Immodest Acts”), the maestro who brought us “Basic Instinct” (1992) and “Showgirls” (1995) plunges us into 17th-century Italy where piety and pestilence are duking it out. Inside the walls of one Tuscan convent, though, all is serene — at least until a statue of the Virgin topples on top of a child novice named Benedetta (Elena Plonka). Immediately, the miraculously unharmed youngster latches on to Our Lady’s bared plaster breast: To Benedetta, earthly and spiritual ecstasy are one and the same.By the time she’s 18, Benedetta (now played by the gorgeous Virginie Efira) is experiencing erotic visions of a naked Jesus, as sexless as a Ken doll, instructing her to remove her clothing. Her suddenly flowering stigmata and belief that she has a hotline to the Almighty have alienated her fellow nuns, especially when she ousts the convent’s calculating Abbess (a sly Charlotte Rampling) by promising to pray the plague away from the terrified townsfolk. So when Benedetta’s dalliance with a fiery novitiate (Daphne Patakia) — who has been given sanctuary from her rapey father and brothers — is discovered, the Church’s response is conflicted. After all, there’s money in miracles.Unable to decide if its namesake is saint or sinner, genuine mystic or false prophet, “Benedetta” is too ambivalent to find focus or resolution. Still, Verhoeven brings more vitality to his work than many filmmakers half his age, and his screenplay (with David Birke) is a tasteless hoot, gleefully cramming the frame with blood, fornication and flagellations galore. Without philosophizing over religious repression — or who gets to adjudicate Divine intent — the movie presents lesbianism as a middle finger to Church power, insisting that bodily pleasures don’t have to be bad for the soul. Should this be Verhoeven’s swan song, that’s a perfectly fine sign-off.BenedettaNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Listening to Kenny G’ Review: Good Sax?

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      Penny Lane’s documentary about the superstar sax player Kenny G shows an artist who can be defensive and self-satisfied almost simultaneously.Despite holding the Guinness World Record for best-selling jazz artist, the saxophonist Kenneth Gorelick, who goes by the stage name Kenny G, may be better known as a punchline than as a musician. “I get it,” he tells the documentarian Penny Lane in Lane’s new film, “Listening to Kenny G.”The movie’s animating question is why a musician who has brought an abundance of pleasure to so many listeners makes so many others almost incoherently angry. Some interviewees, including Kenny G himself, imply that judgments against his work are de facto judgments of the people who love it. That’s a specious conclusion, one which the movie could have unpacked better.But “Listening” is very good at doing other things. As a music industry story, Kenny G’s rise, engineered by the mogul Clive Davis but at times bucked by the artist himself, is fascinating. The analysis of the link between what makes Kenny G a star and what makes him annoying is spot-on — particularly in its treatment of his relationship to jazz. Celebrated artists in that genre like John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk weren’t merely inspired players; they were bandleaders whose musical conceptions stressed instrumental interplay. With Kenny G, his sax is the thing.The sax man’s song “Going Home” is supernaturally popular in China, where it has been adopted as a closing-time anthem. In the documentary, the critic Ben Ratliff, noting this, wryly wonders whether Kenny G’s music is “a weapon of consent.” The movie also gives a funny account of the composer-guitarist Pat Metheny’s enraged accusations of “musical necrophilia” after Kenny G essayed a virtual duet with Louis Armstrong.The saxophonist, often displaying that mix of self-satisfaction and defensiveness which marks artists who’ve received fame and derision in equal measure, remains undaunted. His next album, he announces, will feature another virtual duet, this time with a jazz giant who was distinctively divisive in his own time, Stan Getz.Listening to Kenny GNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      ‘14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible’ Review: Climbing at a Breakneck Pace

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      A documentary follows the Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Pirja as he tries to add cultural depth to the sport’s highs.As the mountaineering genre continues its ascent into the mainstream, there’s a thesis awaiting a graduate student about male climbers and their mothers, wives or partners. Touched on in the Oscar winner “Free Solo” and summer’s “The Alpinist,” those relationships get screen time in “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible,” about the Nepalese climber Nirmal Purja, known as Nimsdai, and his attempt to summit the world’s 14 highest peaks in seven months. (The previous record was seven years.) While his wife, Suchi Purja, charmingly attempts to explain her husband’s embrace of risk to civilians, it’s his ailing mother who underscores more tender lessons about her son’s drive but also about the mortality we all face.As a young man, Purja enlisted in his country’s legendary armed forces, the Gurkhas, and later joined the United Kingdom Special Forces. He seized on the climbing endeavor, which he called “Project Possible,” as a way to highlight the contributions of Nepalese mountaineers, who are more than the Sherpas to Western expeditions. Early on, the project’s four other climbers — Mingma David Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Lakpa Dendi Sherpa and Gesman Tamang — get introduced as vital characters. They are as devoted to Purja’s seemingly mad mission as he is.Much of the documentary’s climbing footage was taken by Purja and his team. The director Torquil Jones uses those images, as well as fresh interviews (the alpine legend Reinhold Messner waxing beautifully existential) and some vivid animation to craft a documentary exploring themes of generosity, danger, drive and national character.In widening its aperture — from the ascents to visits to Purja’s childhood home as well as brief dives into Nepal’s history — “14 Peaks” expands a genre often focused on the feats of individuals to celebrate lessons about vast dreams and communal bonds.14 Peaks: Nothing Is ImpossibleNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More