Movies
Subterms
More stories
- in Movies
‘Sublet’ Review: A Less-Than-Intrepid Traveler
A strait-laced fictional New York Times writer meets a freewheeling younger man in this low-key gay romance from Israel.An understated gay romance, “Sublet” follows a fictional middle-aged New York Times travel writer assigned to discover what’s what in Tel Aviv over the course of five days. Michael (played by John Benjamin Hickey with guarded propriety and bristling vulnerability) seems at odds with the city’s madcap energy. When he arrives at his temporary abode in a particularly hip part of town, he’s caught off guard by Tomer (Niv Nissim), his chaotically free-spirited “landlord,” who rents his home out to tourists for extra cash.The film doesn’t exactly subvert its clichéd “when two worlds meet” premise, and its bubbly but lame music cues are no help. The Israeli director Eytan Fox offers insights into two generations of gay men that at times can seem superficial. Nevertheless, he creates a pleasurably low-key double character study.With Tomer as his guide, the stiff, bespectacled Michael, who is quietly reeling from a personal loss, sees the “real” Tel Aviv — that is, the Tel Aviv of a bohemian 20-something who has never been persecuted for his sexual orientation. The two enjoy local restaurants, see an avant-garde dance performance and visit a disco, though Michael calls it a night when Tomer offers him MDMA.Fox’s critique runs both ways. Tomer is a broke, commitment-phobic wild child, while Michael, insulated by his privilege and shaped by the AIDS epidemic, comes off as woefully out of touch, when, for example, he attempts to weigh in on the Israeli government’s efforts to silence artists.At the same time, the film is never interested in political proselytizing; neither does it depict a life-upending love story. Though far from the gold standard of “brief encounter” dramas like Andrew Haigh’s “Weekend,” “Sublet” nevertheless wins you over with its subtle charm and its mellow depiction of two men forging an unexpected connection.SubletNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More
- in Movies
‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway’ Review: Rabbit Redux
This sassy sequel, with James Corden as the voice of Peter Rabbit, snarks at itself while also snarking at viewers.“Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” wants to have its carrot and eat it, too. For anyone who complained that the 2018 live action-animation hybrid “Peter Rabbit” betrayed Beatrix Potter’s whimsical vision, and seemed less concerned with the plunder of Mr. McGregor’s vegetables than with its own raid of corporate music catalogs, the sequel, once again directed by Will Gluck, pre-empts such objections.Bea (Rose Byrne), the rabbits’ surrogate mother, has turned their adventures into a book. Its success attracts the attention of a publisher (David Oyelowo), who woos Bea with fancy cars and the rabbits with sparkling water and crudités. He envisions a 23-book series featuring 109 characters. Bea fears her work might be adapted into something sassy and hip — in other words, into a movie like “Peter Rabbit 2.” And if it’s annoying to watch a follow-up snark at itself while implicitly snarking at viewers for buying tickets to a crass-ified Peter Rabbit, the conceit offers evidence that things might have been worse. At least Gluck doesn’t send Peter into space.Also annoying is that the commercial calculations are still livelier than the wholesome dialogue between Peter (James Corden supplies his voice) and Bea’s new husband, Thomas (Domhnall Gleeson, miscast both as a romantic lead and the Mr. Wilson to Peter’s Dennis the Menace). It is more fun when Peter, having sulk-walked to Green Day, encounters Barnabas (Lennie James), a thief rabbit who enlists him for a heist at a farmers’ market. Note to bunny criminal masterminds: The prize score is the dried fruit.Peter Rabbit 2: The RunawayRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More
- in Movies
‘Domino: Battle of the Bones’ Review: Juicing Up the Game
This comedy tries to turn the humble pastime of dominoes into an action-packed championship sport.In the comedy “Domino: Battle of the Bones,” the sports heroes of Compton, Calif., aren’t Lakers, Clippers, Sparks, Kings or Angels. Here, the stars of the neighborhood are bones players — a game better known as dominoes. Their championship comes with a plastic trophy and a $10,000 grand prize. The movie has a tall task to make dominoes seem action-packed, and it overcompensates by stacking its hand with over-the-top theatrics.At the center of the circus is Gerald (Lou Beatty Jr.), a foul-mouthed old-timer who plans to cheat his way to the world championship domino title with the help of his prodigy step-grandson, Andy (Nathan Dana). Gerald’s longtime rival is Tenspeed (Anthony McKinley), a roller-skating, cocaine-snorting bones master. Goth Camila (Valeria Vallejos) wants to prove her domino acumen to her family of domineering, domino-playing misogynists. The championship is hosted by the jittery, check-bouncing nebbish Walter (David Arquette). The film’s director, the former professional basketball player Baron Davis, even makes a cameo as a knife-wielding pastor who rents event space to Walter.With its deep ensemble, the movie doesn’t want for colorful characters, and Davis keeps his cast loose, unvarnished and unleashed. But the movie lacks focus when it moves between its larger-than-life plotlines. Rather than building momentum, the editing tends to favor a highlight reel approach. Each scene cuts straight to chaos, only to zip away to a new character in a new conundrum as soon as the last fracas has wrapped. The film’s tendency toward thrill-seeking makes for a viewing experience that is narratively scattershot. Each character shows flashes of potential, but the movie lacks the long game to tie the team together.Domino: Battle of the BonesRated R for drug use, sexual references, brief violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More
- in Movies
‘La Dosis’ Review: Dictating Death
In this Argentine drama, a nurse who euthanizes patients grapples with a co-worker who would rather kill for fun.From its first scene, “La Dosis” makes it clear that its taciturn protagonist, a nurse named Marcos (Carlos Portaluppi), privileges his own morals over professional decorum. Despite protests from doctors, he violates protocol to bring a flatlining patient back to life. The film soon muddles this decision, making its own story puzzlingly opaque.After saving that patient, Marcos decides to euthanize her because he disagrees with the doctors’ treatment plan, which leaves her vulnerable to death by infection. This is not the first — nor last — time Marcos tries to put a patient out of their misery. When a mysterious new nurse, Gabriel (Ignacio Rogers), arrives, it seems he may expose Marcos’s misdeeds. Instead, his behavior excuses them by contrast. Gabriel is almost cartoonishly psychotic: He gleefully kills patients and tries to sexually assault the sole female nurse in their ward. Though Marcos might be accused of playing God, next to Gabriel he looks like an angel.While zeroing in on these characters’ actions could have made for tense drama, “La Dosis” has too much else on its mind. The film quickly buries itself in a mountain of half-addressed complexities. Marcos has to search for new housing because his partner recently left him, but we learn nothing about that relationship. Though Gabriel tries to seduce Marcos — including by taking him to a gay bar — it is unclear if Marcos even dates men. “La Dosis” raises many such issues and plays out none of them, making for a frustratingly vague watch.“La Dosis” harms itself by refusing lucidity. What should be a razor’s edge rivalry plays more like a hamstrung thriller.La DosisNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Available to rent or buy on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More
- in Movies
‘Holler’ Review: Escaping a Life of Scraps
In Nicole Riegel’s feature debut, Jessica Barden stars as an Ohio teenager who strips buildings of metal to earn cash.“Holler” begins with Ruth (Jessica Barden), its protagonist, running. She’s racing to drop trash bags into the flatbed of a truck, where her brother, Blaze (Gus Halper), is waiting. They high-tail it from the scene and sell discarded cans to Hark (Austin Amelio), who pays them chump change for metal. Soon, they will graduate to higher-stakes scrap work: stripping deserted buildings of wiring for larger payoffs, with even bigger risks.The central question of the movie is whether Ruth will summon the courage to run again, to flee her hometown. The director, Nicole Riegel, making her feature debut, shot the film in the section of southern Ohio where she’s from. Riegel has said that Ruth’s story was inspired by her own challenges leaving the area. Even the medium — Super 16-millimeter film, in the era of digital — adds to the ambience of rusting, abandoned machinery.Ruth has little overt incentive to stick around. She hides an eviction notice under a flower pot. Her mother (Pamela Adlon) is a drug addict in a county jail. But Ruth gets an unexpected — and, to a condescending teacher at her high school, impractical — offer of college admission: Although she had prepared the application, she never submitted it. Blaze did that for her.The film strikes an unanticipated false note with its ending, which initially seems too easy — a way to avoid resolving conflicts. But despite a parting smile, and the music of Phoebe Bridgers over the credits, the final moments becomes bleaker upon reflection. The only way to end this story is to abandon it.HollerRated R. Violence and trespassing. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More
- in Movies
‘Asia’ Review: Tough Love and an Indecent Proposal
This drama about a young single mother and a terminally ill daughter avoids sentimentalism but indulges heavily in dourness.In the opening moments of “Asia,” a young-looking woman dances and downs shots in a crowded, neon-lit bar. You might be surprised when, in the next scene, she’s revealed as the maternal half of Ruthy Pribar’s mother-daughter drama. A 35-year-old Russian nurse in Jerusalem, Asia (Alena Yiv) was in her teens when she had Vika (Shira Haas). Now that Vika is a teenager, and eager to experiment with boys and drugs, Asia struggles to discipline her while seeking escapes of her own in hookups and drinks after long work shifts. Adding urgency to Vika’s adolescent rebellion is her fast-progressing degenerative disease, which makes her desperate to experience life’s hedonistic pleasures.“Asia” follows the contortions of Asia and Vika’s relationship as the latter’s health deteriorates rapidly. Pribar directs with a delicate touch, with little music and a lens that’s attentive to faces and gazes. But if the film avoids the typical sentimentalism of dramas about terminal illness, it indulges heavily in dourness. Asia and Vika struggle to emerge as full-fleshed characters from the movie’s dull, blue-grey frames, while the script rushes through provocative plot turns in its bleak procession toward a wrenching conclusion.The most troubling of these narrative twists involves Gabi (Tamir Mula), a charming Arab nurse-aid whom Asia hires to take care of Vika. In a misguided bid to fulfill her daughter’s desires, Asia makes Gabi a thoroughly indecent proposal — one that, in a more daring film, might have cued an exploration of the ethical quandaries that caregiving often involves. But “Asia” downplays the transgression and its emotional ramifications, in what feels like a disservice to Vika’s assertion that she deserves more than our pity.AsiaNot rated. In Hebrew and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters. More
- in Movies
‘Rogue Hostage’ Review: Everything Must Go
In this film from Jon Keeyes, violent men take over a giant store. Nearly all the major hostages are connected, but nothing makes sense.The bulk of “Rogue Hostage” takes place during the siege of a Walmart-like store where customers love buying stuff cheaply, the proprietor, Sam Nelson (John Malkovich), smugly notes. It’s the sort of place where you might expect to stumble on a familiar-sounding but possibly imagined movie like “Rogue Hostage” on the DVD rack. The recycling bin would also do.On a day when Sam, who is also a congressman, plans to appear at the store, violent men led by Eagan (Chris Backus) hold the venue and its shoppers hostage, with the seeming goal of getting Sam to confess a crime. The motive isn’t really relevant — or at least the director, Jon Keeyes, and screenwriter, Mickey Solis, treat it that way. The tossed-off explanations for the villains’ behavior don’t add up to much.Nearly all the characters are connected, but nothing makes sense. The trapped customers include the movie’s hero, Kyle (Tyrese Gibson), a former Marine and current officer for child protective services. He happens to be Sam’s stepson, and a foster child he’s worked with, Mikki (Holly Taylor), happens to be a store employee. Mikki spends most of the siege in the security office with her boss, Sunshine (Luna Lauren Velez), who used to tutor Eagan when he was in high school.Even in establishing physical space — it’s hard to figure out how Kyle subdues a man who is abusive to a child or where he hides in the home goods section, or how Sunshine opens a door without detonating a bomb — “Rogue Hostage” is shoddy work.Rogue HostageNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More
