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      ‘Bad Tales’ Review: Suburban Dysfunction, Italian Style

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      The new film from the D’Innocenzo brothers is stocked with unhappy families and unfortunate haircuts.“Bad Tales” concerns the wretched, sometimes comical, occasionally tender interactions of a group of families in an exurban development on the outskirts of Rome. A narrator introduces the story with a convoluted account of finding a young girl’s diary and continuing to write in it in his own adult male voice.The ensuing chronicle of lust, envy, dysfunction and tragedy similarly mingles the perspectives of grown-ups and children, to puzzling, sometimes creepy effect. In the haze and languor of an Italian summer, three households come into fuzzy focus, each one dominated by a father with an aggressive haircut. These dads all have middle-school-age sons and daughters whose awkward sexual awakenings are viewed with semi-nostalgic prurience.The mood of “Bad Tales,” the second feature written and directed by the brothers Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, might remind some viewers of the lesser work of Todd Solondz. The characters are middle-class suburban grotesques, their strivings and self-delusions treated with a mixture of compassion and contempt. At the end, they are punished with a sadism that registers either the depth of their awfulness or the cruelty of the universe.After catching head lice at a neighbor’s pool, a girl has her hair closely cropped, and later appears in an unflattering wig. Her mother brings her to a play date with an excruciatingly shy boy who is supposed to infect her with measles. A slightly older girl is pregnant. At least two boys are building bombs in their bedrooms. However wayward these kids might be, their parents are worse — moody, vain, selfish, competitive, sexually confused …The icky situations are acted with deadpan sincerity by the younger members of the cast and with misdirected intensity by their elders. The story is both overwrought and underdeveloped, with potentially important plot details insufficiently explained or left out altogether. All in all, the movie lives up to its title, though perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended.Bad TalesNot rated. In Italian, with subtitles. Watch through virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘All Light, Everywhere’ Review: Watching the Watchers

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      Theo Anthony’s new documentary surveys the history and ethics of surveillance.In 2017, the filmmaker Theo Anthony released “Rat Film,” an improbably poetic, intellectually dazzling, politically astute documentary on the seemingly prosaic topic of rats and their place in the modern urban landscape. “All Light, Everywhere,” Anthony’s new movie, ponders a more abstract, less earthbound array of subjects — the physiology of human vision, the history of photography, the ethics of surveillance — in a similar spirit of open-minded, morally urgent inquiry. If the connections Anthony draws are sometimes vague and not always persuasive, that may be a risk built into his essayistic, undogmatic approach to reality.And the attempt to capture reality in moving images happens to be what “All Light, Everywhere” is about. It starts with a quote from William Blake: “As the Eye — such the Object.” In other words, vision determines the shape of what is seen. Rather than a simple picture of reality, the camera selects, frames and interprets, often in the service of power and ideology.This is especially worrisome when the camera is doing the work of law enforcement. Anthony’s main concern is the use of video and other forms of image-gathering in policing, a practice whose claims of objectivity come under steady, skeptical pressure.Some of the pressure comes from voice-over narration, written by Anthony and read by Keaver Brenai, that bristles with rhetorical questions (“what future does history dream of?”) and theoretical formulations. The musical score, by Dan Deacon, adds an air of menace and suspense which sometimes overwhelms the images.Luckily, the philosophical flights and historical disquisitions are affixed to a sturdy and eye-opening documentary structure. Anthony and his crew take a tour of the Arizona headquarters of Axon, which manufactures both Tasers and body cameras. An upbeat company spokesman explains the connection between those products, and his pitch is rooted in the sincere faith that free enterprise and technological innovation can tackle problems of public safety and government accountability.Is he selling progress or dystopia? A similar question haunts the mysterious focus group that convenes from time to time onscreen, and also the Baltimore Police Department training session devoted to Axon body cameras. There, officers look bored and suspicious as a sergeant walks them through policies and procedures he claims will benefit the police at least as much as it protects the rights of citizens.In observing these interactions — and a Baltimore community meeting on the use of airplane-mounted cameras to track movement on city streets — Anthony teases out the disturbing political implications of techniques that are often presented as neutral or benevolent.We like to think that pictures don’t lie, and that data has no bias. But Anthony suggests not only that there is always a point of view at work, but also that images and information are readily weaponized by those with power, used for the classification and control of those without it.In a manner that is patient — and sometimes even playful — rather than polemical, “All Light, Everywhere” contributes to debates about crime, policing, racism and accountability. In its final moments it gestures beyond those arguments, toward a very different set of ideas about what cameras can do. A brief epilogue documents Anthony’s involvement in a filmmaking program for Baltimore high school students, an experience the director admits he couldn’t figure out how to fit into this movie.Its inclusion nonetheless adds the glimmer of a counterargument to a troubling account of some of the ways Big Brother is watching us — a reminder that the rest of us have eyes, too. And cameras.All Light, EverywhereNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Spirit Untamed’ Review: Horse Girls Unite

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      This spinoff of “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is a bland, bubbly romp through the Wild West, with a heavy dose of girl power.Nearly two decades after “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” and its eponymous yellow mustang came on the scene, “Spirit Untamed” — a chirpy, digitally reupholstered spinoff — has arrived. While both are from DreamWorks Animation, the reboot has little in common with the 2002 original, which clung to hand-drawn visuals at a time when the pseudo-realistic computer animation of “Shrek,” also from DreamWorks, and Pixar movies like “Monsters, Inc.” began taking over. For better or worse, this new “Spirit” takes a modern approach.Instead of a heavy-handed, power-ballad-filled melodrama about a bronco and his saintly Native American comrade, “Spirit Untamed” is innocuously geared toward young (horse) girls everywhere. It uses the racially diverse characters from the Netflix series “Spirit Riding Free,” which debuted in 2017 and reintroduced the franchise, to deliver a coming-of-age tale with a predictably heavy dose of girl power.At the film’s center is the thrill-seeking Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced), who is essentially banished from her stuffy East Coast abode and sent to spend the summer with her estranged father (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the frontier town of Miradero. Instantly drawn to a stallion she names Spirit, our American Girl-esque protagonist strives to earn the horse’s trust, simultaneously getting in touch with her Mexican roots and defying her dad, who remains scarred from her mother’s horse-riding-related death.Thankfully, Lucky (who also goes by her real, Spanish name, Fortuna) is not a loner. When brutish wranglers horse-nap members of Spirit’s herd, our heroine is joined by her intrepid gal pals on a perilous obstacle course-like rescue mission through the outback.The kiddies, I’m sure, will be satisfied. The film (directed by Elaine Bogan) is a bubbly, fast-paced romp through the Wild West, which is not to say it’s an improvement on the maudlin original. With its saucer-eyed, bobblehead-like characters, it’s a version barely distinguishable from the majority of animated children’s movies these days — more like Spirit domesticated.Spirit UntamedRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Tove’ Review: The Life of a Sharp Illustrator in Soft Focus

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      This biopic examines the creator of the Moomins, Tove Jansson, but it skimps on artistic insight in favor of unsatisfying romances.The biopic “Tove” examines the early life of Tove Jansson, the queer artist who created the children’s fantasy series, the Moomins. The Moomins were a visually and narratively original concept, a gentle family of hippopotamus-shaped trolls who lived with their friends in a valley, where all pursued adventure and mischief. The series is by turns satirical, melancholic and fantastic, and the Moomins made Jansson a beloved literary figure. How disappointing then that “Tove” should be stuffy in style and rather incurious about how Jansson either developed or implemented her unique artistic sensibility.The biopic begins in Helsinki during World War, II when Jansson (Alma Poysti) was a young painter, struggling to win grant money and the approval of her sculptor father. Though her paintings receive little acknowledgment, her illustrations are noticed first by the leftist philosopher Atos Wirtanen (Shanti Roney), and then by the bourgeois theater director Vivica Bandler (Krista Kosonen), both of whom become involved in long-term affairs with Jansson. Most of the movie is a tug-of-war between the passion that Jansson feels for the unfaithful Vivica, and the comfort she receives from the reliable Atos.The romantic turmoil unfortunately leaves little screentime for illustration, painting, writing or the other artistic projects that Jansson pursued in her lifetime.The director, Zaida Bergroth, offers glimpses of Jansson at work, but shots of her sketchbooks pass in flashes, offering only a cursory acknowledgment that the drawing was done amid the flim-flam of half-hearted romances. The soft-focus cinematography is beautiful but drippy, and this general tendency toward mushy melodramatics presents an unflattering contrast to the sharp-lined vivacity that Jansson brought to the page.ToveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Chasing Wonders’ Review: Divining Secrets of a Past Vintage

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      A young man tries to learn why his family left Spain for Australia in this picturesque drama with Edward James Olmos, Paz Vega and Carmen Maura.There’s a lot of beautiful scenery in “Chasing Wonders,” which stands to reason, as the movie was shot in winemaking regions of Europe and Australia. Directed by Paul Meins from a script by Judy Morris, the movie tells the story of a family of vintners who emigrated from Spain to Australia in the early part of this century, and of its youngest member, Savino, who as a teenager returns to Spain in search of answers about his past.“Tells the story” is putting it generously, as it happens. In spite of its tidy running time, “Chasing Wonders” is diffuse and often limp. At a birthday party for a preteen Savino, the boy receives the gift of a telescope, and on the enigmatic instructions of his grandfather (played by Edward James Olmos, who also reads a platitude-packed narration) embarks with a friend to up to higher rocky terrain, the better to survey the night sky. This sets off his protective, stifling father (Antonio de la Torre), and a fractious family struggle ensues. This drawn-out fight is one in which you just know that the long-untouched bottle of wine from the old vineyard in Spain is going to be opened somehow.Other members of the family include Paz Vega and Carmen Maura, both stalwarts of Spanish cinema, and they’re a pleasure to spend time with. (It’s also interesting that Savino as both boy and teenager is played by the same actor, Michael Crisafulli; the scenes in Spain were shot years after the Australian narrative was captured.)The daytime landscapes — sprawling vineyards, blue skies, impressive rock formations — provide unalloyed visual contentment. Some of the night skies appear digitally over-enhanced, although if they’re not, more power to the cinematographer, Denson Baker. The movie’s human element ultimately serves up not much more than triteness.Chasing WondersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes. In English and in Spanish with subtitles. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘City of Ali’ Review: A Final Round for a Champ

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      This documentary makes for an extremely minor addition to the Muhammad Ali cinematic universe.Muhammad Ali is probably already the most dramatized and documentarized athlete in film history, and “City of Ali” makes for an extremely lightweight addition to the former heavyweight champion’s cinematic universe. This documentary, directed by Graham Shelby, focuses on Ali’s relationship with his hometown, Louisville, Ky., and how the city gave him a grand send-off after his death in 2016.Made with the participation of Ali’s family — some of his children are among the interviewees, as is his wife, Lonnie Ali (who is also shown giving a September 2020 speech about racial and social justice during the closing credits) — “City of Ali” presents an extremely basic overview of his career. It emphasizes Louisville-centered stories (of how the city police officer Joe Martin encouraged Ali, then Cassius Clay, to pursue boxing, for example) and shows residents and friends reminiscing about local sightings.The film movingly pays tribute to Ali’s generosity and lack of airs. Kelly Jones of the Louisville Metro Police recalls the time Ali entertained Jones’s 18-month-old daughter at an airport. The Louisville news media personality John Ramsey is shown delivering a eulogy in which he remembers how Ali raised the spirits of a losing boxer at the 2000 Olympics.But the nuances of Ali’s relationship with Louisville — where Ali faced discrimination as a Black American and controversy for his refusal to be drafted — tend to get lost in the celebration of civic pride. And much of “City of Ali” is simply arcana. The security arrangements for Ali’s funeral procession and the plan to spread rose petals near his resting place aren’t exactly movie-worthy subjects.City of AliNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 21 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘Undine’ Review: Love In and Out of the Water

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      Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, who made an impression in 2019’s “Transit,” are reunited by the director Christian Petzold for this adaptation of a European myth.At an outdoor table of a small cafe situated on the ground floor of an imposing brick building, two lovers are ending their affair. The woman of the pair, not happy with this development, bickers with the man about a voice mail message. When that thread is exhausted, she tells him matter-of-factly, “If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you.”Well, that escalated quickly. The woman, whose name is Undine — played with equal parts passion and calculation by Paula Beer — retains our sympathy even as she makes that unreasonable pronouncement. Because, as it happens, it’s not unreasonable. Undine is not mentally ill or morally reckless. What she’s talking about here is fate. With seemingly minimal means, the writer-director Christian Petzold makes the viewer understand this, mere minutes into the story, adapted from a European myth about a water sprite who can fall in love and become human, but who must suffer greatly if her lover is unfaithful.This modern-day Undine is, on land, a historian who instructs wealthy tourists on Berlin’s aesthetic and political schisms over the centuries. These sessions lead to sometimes tense exchanges: an evocation of “an architecture in keeping with national tradition,” for example, prompts the question, “Hadn’t the Nazis discredited nationalism?”But Petzold doesn’t hammer the potential for political parable or allegory here — which is a little surprising, given the lessons on modern German history he offers up in pictures such as “Phoenix.” Instead, this fractured not-quite-fairy-tale parcels out provocative instances of magical realism on arguably larger themes.After being ditched by her sniveling partner Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), Undine almost immediately retreats into the cafe, where she fixates on a small statue of a helmeted sea diver in a fish tank. The aquarium vibrates and soon explodes, knocking her to the floor with another man, Christoph (Franz Rogowski). They’re both drenched, and she’s a bit cut up by shards from the tank.This peculiar meet-cute is handled straightforwardly (the movie’s clean, economical production design, by Merlin Ortner, grounds the picture in this respect), as are the story’s other fantastic elements — including an ethereal catfish and a diving outing during which Undine mysteriously sheds her wet suit, flippers and oxygen tank.Undine’s new love — the kind, compassionate and knowing Christoph (he and Beer were also paired in Petzold’s prior film, “Transit”) — is himself a diver. Being near him makes Undine feel more at home, so to speak. But Christoph’s work, welding underwater turbines, is risky. Soon Undine is presented with a dilemma that forces her to confront a fate she had hoped her new happiness would help her avoid.Petzold’s cinematic storytelling style is elegant but unfussy, perfectly complemented by Hans Fromm’s cinematography and by the sparely used music, which includes the Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson’s dreamy interpretations of Bach and the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” “Undine” is ultimately more enigmatic than most of Petzold’s work. It is also, like its title character, eerily beautiful. While it could well serve as a high-end date movie, it’s also something more.UndineNot rated. In German and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Slow Machine’ Review: What Do Paranoid Actresses Dream Of?

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      Joe DeNardo and Paul Felten craft a mysterious New York thriller with mumblecore sensibilities.Simultaneously high stakes and low-key, “Slow Machine,” the enigmatic debut feature of Joe DeNardo and Paul Felten, who also wrote it, follows a Swedish actress named Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes). She becomes romantically involved with Gerard (Scott Shepherd), an intelligence agent for the New York Police Department, and bunks with indie musicians upstate, including Eleanor Friedberger (as herself). Along the way, Stephanie attends an A.A. meeting and grabs drinks with Chloë Sevigny (playing a prickly version of herself) — both events are slightly interrupted by a possible bomb threat.Difficult to describe and confounding to follow, the film is best when you submit to the surreal nature of it; then, you will be open to witnessing one of this year’s most mesmerizing movies unfold. Films of such lo-fi aesthetics rarely feel this major.The mystically inclined French auteur Jacques Rivette explicitly influenced the directors, but there are also paranoid, insomniac traces of Sara Driver’s “Sleepwalk” and Bette Gordon’s “Variety.” The taboo flirtations with authority and danger are reminiscent of Jane Campion’s “In the Cut.” All are New York movies, but DeNardo and Felten’s New York is nearly impossible to place. Vague locations, along with the use of pointillistic 16-millimeter film and actorly monologues, enhance a dreamy, meta quality at play.Much of Gerard and Stephanie’s relationship is contained in a barely furnished apartment. When he takes her to a diner, she asks what borough they’re in (Queens, by the way). In the film’s best scene, Sevigny dives into an oration about a bizarre audition somewhere she cannot place, realizing “the world had dissolved around us — not dissolved, died.” Watching “Slow Machine” has that sort of strange effect: It transports you deep into a world that you’re desperate to grasp.Slow MachineNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 12 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More