Movies

It may sound counterintuitive, but watching horror films isn’t just about feeling scared. It’s also about feeling safe. Scary movies assure our brains that the terror is happening there, not here. They’re chilling security blankets.A few weeks ago, the pandemic film “Contagion” was terrifying and cautionary but also a work of fiction. Now many of its fictions are facts, and the fear is real. (For some people, “Contagion” is still entertaining; streams of the film and other virus-themed disaster movies have surged.)Besides pandemics, horror movies about isolation (“It Comes at Night”), home invasions (“Hush”) and the apocalypse (“The Road”) also come too close for comfort these days.But what if I told you I had a motley list of films that are so far-fetched and improbable that there’s no way they could come true? That you can safely and sanely enjoy dread, mayhem and fear of the unknown? That each one carries a promise that this will never happen?Please, please, please let me be right.‘Them!’ (1954)Like That Would Happen: Giant killer antsAtomic Age creature features — about mutant people, animals and insects gone wild — are escapist nostalgia trips that make up in fun what they lack in quality. With run times around 90 minutes or less, they’re perfect for double or triple features. You can choose from a universe of attackers, including crabs, scorpions, she-creatures and The Manster. (CreatureFeatures.tv is a terrific resource.) One of the best is “Them!,” directed by Gordon Douglas, about massive man-crushing ants. The movie is more goofy than scary; one critic said the ants “look ridiculous and as threatening as … well, the Care Bears.” This one’s especially good for restless kids who might enjoy a retro scare.Available on Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes‘Alphaville’ (1965)Like That Would Happen: Mind controlFor something more highbrow, try Jean-Luc Godard’s sci-fi/film noir mash-up set in the dismal world of Alphaville, where emotions are outlawed. The film follows the intergalactic detective Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) on his mission to hunt down the evil scientist behind a mind-control supercomputer that rules the citizenry. Lemmy gets help from the scientist’s daughter Natacha (Anna Karina), who ultimately discovers love herself. Godard’s pulpy homage to American B-movies and hard-boiled gumshoe dramas exists in a world where technology and totalitarianism partner for evil. (We’re not there — yet.) But Godard also stylishly delivers a dystopian love story with a poetic, utopian heart.Available on Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, Kanopy‘Eraserhead’ (1977)Like That Would Happen: EverythingPerfect for adventurous film freaks, David Lynch’s first feature is a wacko, surreal, black-and-white nightmare-scape about — how do I put this? — an unnerved man with frightful hair (Jack Nance) and a monstrous infant. Writing in The New York Times, Manohla Dargis said the film “disturbs, seduces and even shocks,” but it “also amuses, in its own weird way, with scenes of preposterous, macabre comedy.” I vote this the Film Least Likely to Become a Documentary.Available on Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Criterion Channel‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ (1988)Like That Would Happen: Killer clowns from outer spaceIn this outlandish comedy-horror hybrid, clownlike aliens infiltrate a small town with plans to terrorize humanity. To the rescue come the teenagers Mike (Grant Cramer) and Debbie (Suzanne Snyder), who try to convince disbelieving authorities that the murderous bozos aren’t joking. Directed by Stephen Chiodo, the film is a fun-house nod to B-movie fare like “The Blob,” and now has a cult following. This one is great for families with children who can handle creepy clowns harvesting people in cotton-candy cocoons, or death by pie in the face.Available on Roku, Tubi, Pluto TV‘Willow Creek’ (2013)Like That Would Happen: BigfootUntil Bigfoot is captured, Bobcat Goldthwait’s unsettling found-footage horror movie remains a frightening work of pure imagination. It’s about a couple (Bryce Johnson and Alexie Gilmore) who travel deep into the woods to document where Sasquatch was said to have been seen in 1967. An almost 20-minute scene shot entirely inside a tent is one of the most nail-biting moments I’ve ever watched through my fingers. Because it feels like a documentary, this one is best for folks with a strong constitution for realistic horror.Available on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Kanopy‘One Cut of the Dead’ (2019)Like That Would Happen: ZombiesThe most memorable zombie films upend the genre with surprises like musical-comedy zombies (“Anna and the Apocalypse”) and Nazi zombies (“Dead Snow”). This Japanese comedy, directed by Shinichiro Ueda, adds a delightful twist: meta zombies. In the zombie film within the film, a director keeps rolling as his cast and crew are attacked by actual zombies. But about a third of the way in, we suddenly switch gears and “One Cut of the Dead” delightfully transforms into a slapstick backstage farce — think “Noises Off” with blood. I’m cheating a little by including this film, since it could actually happen. (The reason it could is a spoiler.) But if it did, that would be splendid.Available on Shudder, Amazon, Google Play, iTunes More

In the comedy “Almost Love,” romance springs from a love of one’s class. The movie follows a group of 30-something New Yorkers who support one another through various stages of relationships. Ensconced in their close-knit circle, they chatter, deeming which partners are perfect and which ones deserve the boot. But the one subject these chatty characters never touch is class, despite their obvious obsession with it.Adam (Scott Evans) and Marklin (Augustus Prew) are at the center of this intertwined crew. They have been together for five years, but their sense of intimacy has started to deteriorate and their friends aren’t holding up any better. One, Elizabeth (Kate Walsh), seems to have the perfect relationship with her husband, until infidelity shakes its foundations. Another, Haley (Zoe Chao) is confused in her role as a college counselor when a particularly dependent student develops a crush on her.[embedded content]As these characters stumble and joke their way toward their inevitably happy endings, they flirt with shallowness. The film’s writer and director Mike Doyle does too. It’s particularly shown in the character of Cammy (Michelle Buteau), who has found a guy she likes enough to stay home with, despite her concerns he’s not totally Mr. Right. In short, her beau, Henry (Colin Donnell), is homeless. Cammy’s fears about how his housing reflects on her own stability are uncomfortably played for laughs, which only underscores the movie’s confused attitude toward social class.“Almost Love” teases you with glimpses into Manhattanite pocketbooks with references to exorbitant rents or entitled, wealthy clients. But each time money enters the story, the film dances around the issue, treating the characters’ investments in one another as solely emotional. When Elizabeth rejects a flirtation with a handsome ice cream man, she complains that he only wants to talk about his boring job. The movie never follows up and never leaves room to consider that these genial people with nice apartments and Ivy League diplomas might have an obnoxious sense of who is in their league.The aimless characters in “Almost Love” like to talk through their feelings, their aspirations, their disappointments, but there is little substance in their epiphanies, and the comedy is too low key to make up for its absence. In this comedy of romantic manners, class solidarity is the love that dares not speak its name.Almost LoveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

“Slay the Dragon” begins with a subject that might seem counterintuitive for a documentary on gerrymandering: the Flint, Mich., water crisis. The movie lays out a timeline of state legislative actions that led to the decision that contaminated the city’s water supply. It persuasively argues that the crisis never would have happened without gerrymandering, which had allowed legislators to shield themselves from voters’ wrath.Connecting the dots between Flint and gerrymandering isn’t new; that case has been made elsewhere by the journalist David Daley, a consultant on the documentary and the author of “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count.” For anyone who has read a book on gerrymandering or followed the legal fights over the matter, “Slay the Dragon” won’t necessarily offer much that is new. (The Supreme Court ruled last June that federal courts had no power to rectify partisan gerrymanders, a process in which state legislative majorities redraw voting maps to help their political side ensure control.)But the film, directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance, does a skillful job of distilling a complicated history. It recounts a Republican campaign to flip statehouses in the all-important election of 2010, a census year after which legislators could redraw boundaries. It tags along with Katie Fahey, a grass-roots activist, as she pushes for a ballot measure in Michigan that, in 2018, gave redistricting authority to an independent commission. And it dissects the extreme nature of partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin — graphics show how sophisticated, data-driven mapmaking guaranteed that, even in the event of a Democratic landslide, Republicans would maintain power in the State Assembly — and its policy consequences.[embedded content]One architect of the gerrymanders is quite forthright about his accomplishments. Chris Jankowski, a Republican strategist whose redistricting program was featured in Daley’s book, coolly discusses the cost-effectiveness of his plan to win statehouses in 2010, which had the potential to lock in Republican control in the House of Representatives for a decade. (It took the 2018 Democratic national landslide — unmentioned here — to counteract that.)Dale Schultz, a Republican and former state senator in Wisconsin, speaks out about the practice even though it benefited his party. He recalls his shock over the swiftness of Gov. Scott Walker’s push to weaken public-sector unions after winning office in 2010 (he remembers saying, “people kill each other’s dogs over this kind of stuff”) and, later, after seeing the 2012 election results, his surprise at how many assembly seats Republicans were able to retain.And then there is Robert LaBrant, a Republican redistricting strategist in Michigan who says he doesn’t think surplus votes for Democrats in urban districts are a direct result of Republican gerrymandering. “It’s just a fact of life,” he says. Then the movie shows a May 2011 email in which he wrote, “We needed for legal and PR purposes a good looking map that did not look like an obvious gerrymander.”The goals of “Slay the Dragon” are more activist than cinematic; the documentary ends with an exhortation for viewers to visit a website to learn how to take action. And there are only a few passages in which it has the sort of present-tense exhilaration that can come from watching events unfold, as when it embeds in 2018 with some of the plaintiff’s team in Gill v. Whitford, as they wait — and wait — for the Supreme Court’s ruling.But “Slay the Dragon” is not short on outrage, and just because some of this material is not new doesn’t mean it’s not worth repeating.Slay the DragonRated PG-13; tampering with democracy. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

No one likes when their parent begins dating someone new, and Kareem Manning (Terrence Little Gardenhigh), the pint-size pseudo-policeman in the agonizingly humorless Netflix cop comedy “Coffee & Kareem,” is no exception. But his reaction to learning that his mother, Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson), is dating a loser cop (Ed Helms, who is also credited as a producer) — requesting that local drug dealers put a hit on his mom’s new boyfriend — might be considered fairly extreme. Now, that bumbling police officer, James Coffee, recently demoted to handling traffic after allowing a Detroit drug dealer (Ronreaco Lee) to get away during a sting operation, has to prove to Vanessa his worth both as a romantic partner and a possible father figure for her son. Additionally, Coffee must show that he’s more than a weak, poor, uncool white guy to the 12-year-old Kareem, who aspires to become a rapper and wears an outsized form of young braggadocio.Kareem’s hit request goes off the rails when he and Coffee witness the dealers murder a corrupt officer, launching them into a rogue buddy cop plotline so padded with bad jokes (many of which are homophobic), aimlessly vulgar language and hackneyed plot points that it makes its 88 minutes congeal beyond a recognizable measure of time.Directed by Michael Dowse as something like the comedic demon seed of “Good Boys” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coffee and Kareem” (get it?) sees itself as a provocation. Kareem calls cops “pigs” and makes cracks about the racial dynamics between both him and Coffee, and Coffee and his mother.The buddy cop movie genre is by all means worth interrogating as conversations around institutional racism and police brutality continue. But this film’s jabs are dull and sophomoric, as if they only began with the premise of “isn’t it wild to make a buddy cop movie in this cultural climate?” without considering the precision needed to allow the gags to be a politically challenging and thoughtful satirical tool. As it stands, this “Coffee” leaves a bitter taste.Coffee & KareemNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. More

Photographed like a dream and experienced like a nightmare, the religious cult at the center of “The Other Lamb” looks idyllic on the outside, but, like the bird’s carcass stumbled upon by the film’s heroine, is teeming with maggots inside.Most of this rot emanates from the leader, a Messiah-like figure known as the Shepherd and played by Michiel Huisman with arrogant stillness and burning glances. The recipient of these is usually Selah (Raffey Cassidy), an auburn-haired beauty and his favorite daughter. Over the years, the Shepherd, the lone male, has accumulated many wives and daughters — for all intents and purposes, seemingly one and the same — and Selah’s approaching puberty is about to catapult her from one nominal category to the other.[embedded content]Her coming-of-age, though, brings visitations beyond the blood that will banish her temporarily to a shed reserved for the impure. Disturbingly macabre visions — a mauled lamb, livid crimson stripes on a woman’s neck — appear at random. Dark hints dropped by Sarah (Denise Gough), a mysteriously cursed wife fed on scraps and exiled to the fringes of the cult’s remote forest home, warn Selah that the Shepherd may not be the answer to her prayers. For one thing, he enjoys ramming his fingers down women’s throats in foreplay, but that’s another story — one that, like all the cult’s legends, only he is permitted to tell.Existing outside of time and place, “The Other Lamb” is a gorgeous revenge fable with an excess of atmosphere and zero subtlety — a mallet wrapped in gauze and girlish laughter. As the women raise sheep and babble hysterically in prayer, the Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska uses her bucolic setting (the movie was filmed in Ireland) like a trap, a cage drenched in mist and primal ritual. The otherworldliness, as well as the potent blend of serenity and agitation in Michal Englert’s ecstatic cinematography, can be hyper-seductive; yet the lack of narrative or character depth in Catherine S. McMullen’s screenplay is frustrating. We learn what happens when a boy is born, or a wife gets too old to titillate; but the revelations — like the reasons for the cult’s endless trek to a new location — unfold with only the flimsiest of context and virtually no back story.In only one brief sequence does the movie seem to reach for something transcendent, as Selah sees herself, in modern dress, drive unheedingly past the sect as it trudges beside a road. A vision of a new life, or a memory of a previous one, it frees the movie from its otherwise slow, symbol-fixated cycle of baptisms and beatings, obedience and control. In the press notes, Szumowska describes her film as “a dark cry against the patriarchy.” That seems to me like a very fair assessment.The Other LambNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play, YouTube and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Jon Abrahams’s comic thriller, “Clover,” strains for the mob intrigue of Martin Scorsese and the rapturous, bloody stylization of Quentin Tarantino. It’s chock-full of gore and expletive-laden banter, but lacks the key ingredients to make it worthy of its influences: original ideas and a strong script.Mickey (played by Abrahams) and Jackie Callaghan (Mark Webber) owe a local mobster, Tony (Chazz Palminteri, hamming it up), a debt that they cannot repay. So, Tony offers them a deal: They can work it off by helping his son, Joey, collect from another defaulting debtor. The situation goes (expectedly) south when Joey is shot dead by the debtor’s 13-year-old daughter, Clover (Nicole Elizabeth Berger), and the brothers flee with the girl, seeking refuge with a motley assortment of friends as they’re chased by Tony’s goons.Every beat in “Clover,” written by Michael Testone, is overly familiar and so is every character. The Callaghans are archetypal bumblers who squabble even when staring down the barrel of a gun. Tony is a cartoonish mob villain with a knack for gruesome murder. There’s also a coldhearted ex-girlfriend; a dirty back-stabbing cop; and a rival mob boss (Ron Perlman) who delivers a speech about the importance of the “pecking order” while a nearby TV plays images of wolves hunting deer. As more short-lived, thinly drawn characters accumulate, the movie contorts in unconvincing ways from one verbose, bullet-ridden set piece to the next.[embedded content]Why this film is named after Clover — or why the character even features in the story — is a mystery: She’s marginal to the plot and surfaces only occasionally to gratingly convey her precocious sass and savvy. A final twist involving a pair of female assassins and a tacked-on rape-revenge back story tries to add some context to Clover’s presence. But it’s a lazy grab at topical feminist cred and feels, as do many aspects of “Clover,“ like a half-realized imitation of better movies.CloverNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

The New York Times has published its popular 36 Hours column for nearly 20 years, helping readers plan weekends in far-flung destinations all over the world.For many of us over the past month, our grand plans have shrunk down to small ones, as have the physical spaces we occupy.While we can’t travel for pleasure right now, the spirit of travel — our curiosity, empathy and sense of adventure — can’t be confined.With all of this in mind, and to continue our 36 Hours column, we called out to our readers for ideas of what people could do over a weekend, wherever they are in the world (even if they are homebound), that embraced the ethos of travel.We received (and read!) more than 1,400 submissions from all over the world — from Guangzhou to Zurich, Sydney to Buenos Aires, and across the United States.Below is our first reader-sourced 36 Hours column. We hope it moves you. The responses have been edited for clarity, style and length.Friday1) 5 p.m. Happy hourMake a plan to meet your neighbors at a distance — each of you bringing your respective libation — and yell across the fence, from your fire escape, across the street or out your window about how much you’d rather be enjoying that same drink at some chic bar.— Kai Romero, San FranciscoMake a Cazuela cocktail (one of Guadalajara’s signature drinks), because it is a great way to get some vitamin C and a little bit of tequila. Pour grapefruit soda into a bowl, add in some slices of fresh grapefruit, orange and lime, throw in a shot of reposado tequila and a pinch of sea salt. The outcome will be the most refreshing drink you’ll ever try.— Lorena Kunz Salim, Guadalajara, Mexico More

The title of this movie isn’t kidding. To answer your first question, “How lazy is this Susan?” here’s how lazy: While slumped on her sofa, she squeezes ketchup packets into her navel, creating a receptacle in which to dip her takeout French fries.Extreme sloth is not the only distinctive characteristic of this aimless middle-aged Susan. There’s also the fact that she’s played by a man, Sean Hayes, who’s best known for his work on the TV comedy “Will and Grace.” Hayes wrote the screenplay with his co-star, Carrie Aizley, and Nick Peet directed. Just as the drag performer Divine made a point of playing Edna Turnblad as a “real” woman in John Waters’s 1988 “Hairspray” (a challenge John Travolta took on in the 2007 musical remake), here Hayes attempts embodiment rather than imitation.[embedded content]Technically, his work here is better than serviceable. But to what end? The character is a caricature of a suburban type, with a fractured clan that makes a big show of hewing to homespun Christian values (Susan’s niece recites a Bible verse before giving a birthday present to Grandma) and sitcom-cartoonish aspirations. For instance, Susan and her best friend, Corrin (played by Aizley), think their rendition of “Blister in the Sun,” with Susan on flute, is going to blow everyone away at the local talent show.The proceedings, which also include Susan falling hard for a smarmy “Jumpoline” proprietor played by Jim Rash, are professionally executed. Yet the movie’s pace seems glacial. It’s as if the filmmakers tossed a bunch of fish into a barrel and didn’t bother to shoot them.At one point Susan says to a neighbor, “You have polio and diabetes? God can be such a hater sometimes.” Yes, and on occasion to movie reviewers especially.Lazy SusanNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More