Movies

Cantankerous and fiercely independent, the 80-year-old Grandma Wong (Tsai Chin) wants to live by herself in her Chinatown apartment in New York. Her son, Howard (Eddie Yu), wants her to move in with his family to save on rent. Encouraged by a fortune teller’s promise of imminent luck, she takes all her savings to a casino only to find herself — after some hilariously absurd twists — with a bagful of a dead man’s cash and a pair of gangsters on her tail.[embedded content]The director Sasie Sealy’s feature debut has style and keenly observed visual humor. Each scene is paced as perfectly as a punchline, whether it’s Wong swaggering through the streets of New York, a cigarette dangling from her lips, or her tense maneuvers at the casino set to Andrew Orkin’s dramatic jazz score. The action parodies the quirks of New York’s Chinese-American underworld, often cleverly recasting cultural stereotypes in a new light: At one point, Wong outwits a gangster by haggling for a bodyguard (a tall, deceptively sheepish Corey Ha) as if she were buying an off-brand handbag.“Lucky Grandma” puts an older Asian woman center stage without infantilizing her or rendering her pitiful. Chin, best known for “The Joy Luck Club,” exudes cool, and she’s effortlessly funny with her dagger eyes and sardonic jibes. Sealy can’t resist a bit of sentimentality toward the end, however, which upsets the film’s tightrope walk between charm and dark, razor-sharp wit.Lucky GrandmaNot rated. In English, Mandarin and Cantonese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas. More

The music business takes center stage in “Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl,” the appealingly candid documentary that finds the director Amy Goldstein working with her subject to show the financial realities of a career in pop.The British singer-songwriter Kate Nash had an early rise to fame, winning prestigious awards and scaling charts at 20. Nearly a decade after her introduction to the spotlight, she still has her passion for performing, but her ambitions have become modest. The film’s ho-hum concert footage shows that her venues are small, her lyrics plain and her costumes have a do-it-yourself charm. Nash is simply happy to perform and make a living doing it.[embedded content]Emphasizing Nash’s lack of pretension, Goldstein follows Nash as she works her way out of a creative rut. The artist has been dropped by her record label and is facing mounting expenses as she funds her own career. She moves to Los Angeles, where she hopes to build secondary sources of revenue by writing songs for aspiring artists and recording for commercials. When her financial plans are interrupted by disappointments and betrayals, the camera watches Nash search for solutions in the moment. Although Nash also sits for interviews, it’s the vérité footage that is most engrossing here, offering the real-time responses of an artist struggling to make ends meet.The documentary presents a flattering view of Nash, but rather than indulging in hagiography, it finds its stride when it examines the business of being a workaday musician. It is endearing in its frankness: a profile of a star after her return from the firmament.Kate Nash: Underestimate the GirlNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Alamo on Demand. More

In a real-life occurrence so serendipitous that it feels almost scripted, the perpetrator and the victim of an art crime become unexpected friends. In 2015, the Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova learned that two of her most prized paintings had been stolen from a gallery in Oslo, where she lives. Surveillance footage led to arrests and a trial. In court, Kysilkova asked the ringleader, Karl-Bertil Nordland, to sit for a portrait; he agreed.[embedded content]The director Benjamin Ree was searching for a story on art theft when he stumbled on Kysilkova and Nordland during the early stages of their relationship. He intertwines both painter and thief in compelling fashion, humanizing the latter without patronizing him. The film’s more intentionally dramatic sequences (like Kysilkova and Nordland looking each other up on Facebook, set to an eerie score, as if they’re in a stalker thriller) are unnecessary because of the stranger-than-fiction nature of the story. But the film resonates most deeply during its raw, vulnerable scenes: when Nordland first sees his portrait and weeps, or when he succumbs to addiction.You might question how much the subjects are performing in the presence of a camera. Certainly the film has its contrived moments, but a scene of confrontation between Kysilkova and her husband scratches at the painter’s own past, making her connection with Nordland feel simultaneously genuine and more troubling (they share a self-destructive streak). The friendship may initially seem preposterous, but the more time you spend with the pair, the clearer their mutual attraction becomes.The Painter and the ThiefNot rated. In English and Norwegian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators, or stream on Hulu. More

“A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps” opens with testimonials from alumni of the U.S. volunteer mission. When they describe the “uncomfortable” conditions of Third World countries, the film offers images of slums. When they talk about having to relinquish their American identities and empathize with “ordinary people” of other cultures, it obliges with swelling, inspirational music.This air of paternalism pervades Alana DeJoseph’s sweeping, though mostly superficial history, even as it touches upon the contradictions inherent in the program’s origins as a Cold War tactic of soft power. DeJoseph charts the political negotiations during other moments when the mission’s diplomatic and altruistic motives appeared at odds — the Vietnam War; the fall of Eastern bloc Communism. But the documentary maintains an uncritical and even hagiographic view of the program’s stated premise, barely interrogating its ethics or on-the-ground efficacy.[embedded content]Narrated by Annette Bening, “A Towering Task” unfolds like a dull, chronological slide show of archival images, basic graphics and seemingly infinite talking heads (including high-profile figures like President Jimmy Carter). The film speeds past significant turning points within the program, such as recent investigations into sexual assault, and pays disproportionately little heed to voices from the communities that host the volunteers.The movie ends with a plea for the Peace Corps’ philosophy of globalism in the face of rising nationalism in America. But DeJoseph’s reluctance to grapple with the complex ways in which humanitarian efforts can entrench American exceptionalism makes the film feel myopic.A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace CorpsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas. More

The title “Military Wives” is plain to the point of blandness. This good-hearted comedy-drama, starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan, deserves a little better.The movie is directed by Peter Cattaneo, who also oversaw the 1997 phenom “The Full Monty.” His latest undertaking aspires to capture the same unusual-and-inspiring-activities-of-certain-people-in-Britain lightning in a bottle of that earlier picture. (Other entries in this unofficial sweepstakes have included Nigel Cole’s “Calendar Girls” and Julian Jarrold’s “Kinky Boots.”)[embedded content]The activity here is singing.At a fictional military base in England, after its troops are deployed to Afghanistan, the wife of the company’s commander, Kate (Scott Thomas), attempts to organize social distractions for the female partners of enlisted men.Once the formation of a choir is vetted, friction flares between the older, more uptight Kate and the earthier ladies, headed up by Horgan’s character (Lisa). Kate advocates a light classical repertoire, while Lisa and company return to their youth with selections from Yaz and Tears for Fears. Kate turns up her nose at such “sober karaoke,” but poptimism carries the day.While the choir was never intended as a public-performing unit, a commander likes what he hears and beckons the group to Royal Albert Hall. (The movie was inspired by a number of such real-life groups across Britain, and the BBC reality series “The Choir” had a season devoted to the formation of such a unit.)The director Billy Wilder, while filming a pet monkey’s funeral in “Sunset Boulevard,” apparently told the cinematographer John Seitz, “Johnny, it’s the usual dead chimpanzee setup.” This movie climaxes with the usual car-speeding-to-Albert-Hall setup, and similar staples.Military WivesRated PG-13 for occasional earthiness in dialogue. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and other streaming platforms and pay-TV operators, or stream on Hulu. More