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Not sure if the new horror movie “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” is for you? Our primer will help you decide.You don’t have to know a thing about the horror movie “Saw” or its spawn before watching the latest movie in the franchise, “Spiral: From the Book of Saw,” opening in theaters on Friday. More
Amy Adams plays a reclusive psychologist who witnesses a crime in a glossy new Netflix thriller.“The Woman in the Window” evokes two emotional states widely associated with the Covid-19 pandemic: real estate envy and the condition of melancholy drift that some psychologists call languishing. The resonance is purely accidental, since this adaptation of a 2018 novel by J.A. Finn, directed by Joe Wright (“Atonement”), was originally slated for theatrical release in 2019. To make a long story short, it fell through the cracks of the Fox-Disney merger and landed at Netflix, where it feels curiously at home. More
This addition to the “Saw” universe stars Chris Rock as a misanthropic detective pitted against a Jigsaw copycat.In “Spiral,” the latest film in the “Saw” universe, the first expletives land before the two-minute mark. Blood spills right after, when a man has to decide between getting his tongue ripped out or being hit by an underground train. That the film is overall gorier and more foulmouthed than its predecessors, while still managing an R rating, is undoubtedly an accomplishment. Unfortunately, that is the film’s only notable one.“Spiral” is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (“Saw II,” “Saw III” and “Saw IV”) and written by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger (“Jigsaw”). The film follows the lone wolf detective Zeke (Chris Rock), who begrudgingly accepts a new partner (Max Minghella) at the same time a Jigsaw copycat targets the corrupt officers on his force. Zeke is portrayed as a renegade, the rare American male unafraid to whine about political correctness or call his ex-wife misogynistic slurs. He scoffs at protocol, tortures an informant and prattles on about how women can’t be trusted. Yet the film calls Zeke a “good cop” and expects viewers to root for him against the killer.Though “Spiral” is the first “Saw” film to introduce a new style of villain — the motivation, voice and puppet alias are all different from that of original baddie John Kramer — it is no more challenging than the rest. Its most redeemable moment is one of accidental camp, when a forensic specialist standing next to a fleshless corpse states, “He was obviously skinned.”The premise is disingenuous at best and, in a moment where scores of citizens are calling for widespread police reform, fearmongering at worst. Like Jigsaw offering one of his facile riddles, this film is not as clever as it thinks it is.Spiral: From the Book of SawRated R for dismemberment, naughty words and general gnarliness. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
Under the veneer of an unusual marriage is an uncontrollable undercurrent to which everyone is susceptible.Robert Machoian’s “The Killing of Two Lovers” opens like a crime thriller: A frantic man looms over his sleeping wife and her lover with a gun. Spooked by a noise, he runs off, and the camera follows him down an empty road in the Utah town where he lives with his ailing father. But a ticking time bomb of violence looms over this drama of a marriage, marked by his abjection and told in unpredictable long takes.The man, David (Clayne Crawford, in a Casey Affleck sort of role), is temporarily living apart from his wife, Nikki (Sepideh Moafi). They take turns looking after their four kids and, within the bounds of their arrangement, she’s also seeing someone else (Chris Coy). But while Nikki looks to be letting their marriage drift away, David is all in.On the edge between rugged and mountain man, David loves caring for their children, though his straight-shooting teenage daughter is a skeptic about the trial separation. Gray winter light washes out the flat ranchlands, and the big skies and pickup trucks (shot by the cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jimenez in boxy 4:3) suggest faded snapshots from an old family album.You never know when something in the air might tighten and snap, primed by a sound design that evokes creaking timber and phantom door slams. Machoian (who co-directed “God Bless the Child”) suggests that a single day of experience can cover the worries of wrangling youngsters, the ache of troubled romance, and the wildest rage. Accepting David’s murderous urges, the film lands on the enduring mystery of marriage’s bonds.The Killing of Two LoversRated R. Heated words. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
This film by David Charbonier and Justin Powell has the trappings of a fairy tale. Don’t be fooled.In the supernatural horror movie “The Djinn,” a dramatic, somewhat corny fairy-talelike voice recites the contents of a mysterious book of spells to the audience. When the 12-year-old Dylan (Ezra Dewey) discovers this book, which lays out instructions for making wishes, he needs no time to settle on one great desire. He craves something he does not have: the ability to speak. That night, when he is left home alone, Dylan gets his wish.The “be careful what you wish for” trope is so common in horror films that it’s hardly a spoiler to say that his wish comes with dire consequences. He conjures the evil djinn, or genie, setting in motion a night of terror. The fable facade is a deceptive precursor for a film that’s definitely not for kids.The directors, David Charbonier and Justin Powell, take a simple, overused premise and put a genuinely fresh and terrifying spin on it by giving the demon corporeal form. The fleshy, bloody violence unexpectedly turns this haunted-house horror into a home invasion horror. Their use of fluid camerawork, pink-hued lighting, and a synthy soundtrack appropriate to the film’s ’80s setting are also impressively stylish.But what begins as an ingenious solution for a minuscule budget and a familiar situation in this genre takes a turn toward the heavy-handed as a ghost from Dylan’s past arrives to prey on his guilt. The film betrays its own less-is-more philosophy and becomes weighed down by exposition — but it’s a tense, thrilling ride nonetheless.The DjinnRated R for graphic violence. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
A documentary explores the Welsh farm-turned-studio, Rockfield, where Black Sabbath, the Stone Roses and others made music.Rockers endeavoring to “get their heads together in the country” has been one of the great clichés of popular music since the late-1960s. As “Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm,” an agreeable new documentary directed by Hannah Berryman, amply testifies, “the country” was just as likely a place for rockers to lose their heads.As recounted by the brothers Kingsley Ward and Charles Ward, their parents’ large pig and dairy farm in Wales was a dodgy inheritance. “No money in farming,” one of them shrugs. Avid rock fans since the mid-50s, they made music together on reel-to-reel tape and drove north to try to sell it; their first stop was a record pressing plant. (They got a “label” address off the back of an LP.)Various farm buildings had attractive acoustic qualities, so the Wards started cleaning them up and sealing them off, building a residential studio. Black Sabbath rehearsed there; the space-rockers Hawkwind recorded there. After leaving Led Zeppelin, the singer Robert Plant found at Rockfield a place to experiment, an environment where he was “free to fail.”The tales become more picaresque as New Wave and Britpop bands begin checking in and behaving like New Wave and Britpop bands. Simple Minds sing backup vocals for an intermittently sober Iggy Pop, and so on. The studio’s biggest upturn comes when the Stone Roses stay for over a year. And then there’s Oasis. Its former lead singer, Liam Gallagher, recalls the fights with his bandleader brother, Noel (of course he does), and rushing to the village pub.This stuff is best appreciated by rock mavens. Many of the other bands telling their stories (including the Boo Radleys and the Charlatans) didn’t have much of an impact in the States, so Anglophilia helps, too.Rockfield: The Studio on the FarmNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More
Directed by Stephen Johnson, this western set in Australia doesn’t follow the expected narrative.This outback western, set in Australia’s Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, begins in 1919, depicting a brutal massacre of a group of Indigenous people known as Yolngu. Above the killing fray is a rifleman named Travis (Simon Baker), a member of the party of white people encroaching on the land. The group below has gone against the mission — Travis was supposed to be the only member of the party authorized to shoot — so he descends from his defensive position and tries to save the Yolngu. One surviving Indigenous witness is a young boy named Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul).Directed by Stephen Johnson from a script by Chris Anastassiades, “High Ground” is not the narrative of Black suffering and a white savior that its opening might suggest. Rather, it’s a story of two characters from different worlds coming to terms with their circumstances.Several years after the massacre, Travis is enlisted by the military to track down an Indigenous warrior, Baywara, who’s organizing attacks against whites at train stations and other locales. As it happens, the boy he rescued years before is Baywara’s nephew. Originally named Gutjuk, he has been adopted by Christian missionaries and assigned a new name. He’s played beautifully by Nayinggul, whose sensitive, alert and tensed-up performance is a substantial reason to give this movie the benefit of the doubt.Travis enlists the teenager as a tracker in his hunt, and promises he’ll do whatever he can to bring Baywara in alive. And he teaches Gutjuk to shoot, from the “high ground” of the film’s title.Civilization, one of Travis’s military commanders tells him, consists of “bad men doing bad things, clearing the way for those who follow.” Travis has his own reckoning with those bad things. And his charge, Gutjuk, has his own reckoning with identity, discarding his Westernized name almost as soon as he starts riding with Travis. While not as powerful as the 1978 Australian picture “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith,” this movie makes a solid case as both a statement and an action picture.High GroundNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Rent or buy on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More
Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin are among the reasons this restoration of a French thriller is worth watching.“La Piscine,” made in 1969, is best known in the United States for its remake, Luca Guadagnino’s frisky, borderline frivolous 2016 “A Bigger Splash.” The release of a pristine restoration of the original, directed by Jacques Deray and starring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin, should bolster this striking movie’s reputation.Schneider and Delon play Marianne and Jean-Paul, a French couple vacationing in a roomy St. Tropez villa whose swimming pool — the “Piscine” of the title — is one of its eminent attractions. They sunbathe, splash and chase one another around the pool as if they were a brand-new couple. As it happens, they’ve been together for two years. The casual nudity and intimations of S-and-M in their relationship suggest an erotic thriller in the early days of its liberation from censorship norms.But as a thriller, it’s a very slow burn. Into the couple’s idyll drops Harry (Ronet), an old friend of Jean-Paul’s and an erstwhile lover of Marianne’s. A wealthy purveyor of pop music, he pulls up to the villa in a snarling Maserati with a surprise in tow: his teenage daughter Penelope, incarnated by the willowy, whispery Birkin.Almost 10 years after his landmark roles as Tom Ripley in “Purple Noon” and Rocco in “Rocco and His Brothers,” both in 1961, Delon still retained every iota of his ultra-sultriness. In dramatic roles, the actor, his sexy sleekness notwithstanding, tends toward a solemnity, and that suits him well here. Jean-Paul, a failed writer who’s now an ad executive, is a sullen puzzle with a hint of menace.Schneider and Birkin do well as independent-minded women who are nevertheless played as pawns by the males. But Ronet almost walks away with the picture. Harry’s big grin is offset by a barely visible raised eyebrow of derision, and his passive-aggressive manipulation of Jean-Paul is chilling.Pretty people behaving poorly in beautiful settings is something we don’t see as much of in cinema as we used to. This is a master class in the subgenre, and one of unusual depth. (Deray worked on the script with the prolific Jean-Claude Carrière, who recently died). In the movie’s last third, Jean-Paul shows a shocking sadism. Once Jean-Paul and Marianne are exiled from their metaphorical Eden, they remain fully clothed for the rest of the picture, and the movie’s color palette becomes more autumnal. Nifty nuances such as these make “La Piscine” a film experience both pleasurable and discomfiting.La PiscineNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes. At Film Forum in New York. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
