Movies

[embedded content]With a $39.1 million domestic opening, Pixar’s “Onward” was considered a box-office disappointment last weekend, at least by the animation label’s elevated standards. Disney usually puts out only one Pixar film a year, but that’s not the plan for 2020. “Soul” is slated to come out in June, and the studio just released the film’s first full trailer.Judging by this promising clip, Pixar may be back on track. Jamie Foxx voices Joe Gardner, a New York City middle-school band teacher who’s about to get his big break as a jazz musician when he falls down a manhole. He lands in the Great Before, an ethereal world where new souls are assigned personality traits before heading to Earth. There, he meets the cynical 22 (Tina Fey), a soul who doesn’t believe life is worth living. As Joe tries to convince 22 otherwise, he realizes he may have a shot at returning to his old body.Directed by Pete Docter, who’s been responsible for some of Pixar’s most emotionally mature films (like “Inside Out” and “Up”), “Soul” gives off an “It’s a Wonderful Life” vibe. The film features jazz tunes by Jon Batiste, the bandleader for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” as well as an original score by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who won an Oscar for “The Social Network.”“Soul” is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on June 19. More

“Inside the Rain” begins as a kind of college caper, although in an unusual location: the student disabilities office. Ben Glass (played by the film’s writer and director Aaron Fisher) is a 20-something film major with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, A.D.H.D., O.C.D. and a host of other conditions.This is Ben’s second attempt at college, but it soon goes awry: romantic disappointments end in self-harm, and a misunderstanding threatens to get him expelled. Determined to vindicate himself and stay in school, Ben enlists the help of an aspiring actress and sex worker, Emma (Ellen Toland), to make a short film about his ordeal.[embedded content]Based on Fisher’s own life experiences, “Inside the Rain” switches erratically between comedy and drama while juggling many half-realized plot threads. But the movie’s strange, inconsistent rhythm ultimately works as a reflection of Ben’s manic and depressive states. Fisher’s performance is disarmingly blunt and deadpan, offering an up-close portrait of mental illness as a banal reality (which often involves negotiations with ill-equipped bureaucracy), rather than the stuff of horror or caricature.If “Inside the Rain” transcends clichés in this regard, it succumbs to them in others, especially its portrayal of women. Emma, whom Ben meets when he defends her from lascivious men outside a strip club, is the classic Hooker With a Heart of Gold. She has no compelling qualities outside of her sensuousness and her desire to help Ben. Rosie Perez also gets short shrift as a smack-talking psychiatrist, the actor’s earnest charm undercut — as is the case with many of the film’s performers, Fisher included — by a weak script.Inside the RainNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

Early on in the documentary “The Dog Doc,” one of the veterinarians working at the Smith Ridge clinic in South Salem, N.Y., mentions that each animal who comes into the clinic is blood tested and offered a nutrition plan based on the results. It’s the first time in “The Dog Doc” that the standards of care practiced at Smith Ridge deliver a jolt. In this compelling film, it’s not the medical miracles that most impress. Instead, the movie makes its biggest impact with treatments that feel like common sense.The director Cindy Meehl focuses her film on Smith Ridge, and on Dr. Marty Feldstein, the veterinarian who started it. Feldstein has spent his life advocating for a more holistic approach to medicine in animals. He treats dogs with vitamins and supplements, and he focuses on diet and noninvasive surgeries as an alternative to the more aggressive treatments typically recommended within the profession.[embedded content]Feldstein has been accused of eccentricity, and he is happy to dress the part. He has the affect and attire of a former hippy, wearing puppy-patterned coats for consultations. But Feldstein is serious about his work, and the film addresses the criticisms and accusations of quackery that have plagued him.Though this sometimes means the movie adopts a defensive posture, it also means that the audience is clear on what the veterinarians at Spring Ridge recommend. This is not a homeopathic approach that denies the validity of vaccines or surgery, but rather one that sees those treatments within a larger plan for total health. For audiences who don’t mind being jealous of sick dogs, “The Dog Doc” is a thought-provoking look at what is missing from modern medicine — for animals and for people.The Dog DocNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. More

Right off the bat, a new movie written and directed by Sally Potter does not take it easy on the viewer. It opens with plain white-on-black titles followed by the sight of Javier Bardem in a bed, in a barely furnished apartment. He lies alone, staring at the ceiling, grunting and mumbling. His guttural utterances are sometimes more frightening than pitiful.What is ailing this man? It’s never revealed. Later in the movie, when Bardem’s character Leo has been examined by a doctor after a fall, the practitioner tells Leo’s daughter (Elle Fanning; her character’s name is not shared until almost the very end of the movie, but is done pointedly) that the resulting cut is not serious. But he then expresses concern for Leo’s “underlying condition.” Whatever it is, it is making life impossible both for him and his daughter, whose devotion seems to know no bounds.“The Roads Not Taken” shows a day in the life of this Leo — and of two others. The incapacitated Leo who’s exiled himself in a tatty Brooklyn flat is tormented by visions of his other potential lives. In one, he lives in Mexico with his first love, Dolores. In another, he lives on a Greek island where he smokes, drinks, writes a bit and flirts with women a third of his age.[embedded content]The three alternate lives have one unifying feature: They all look like a form of hell on earth. Potter’s film preaches a variant of the “you can’t stop what’s coming” ethos articulated in “No Country for Old Men” (a Coen brothers’ movie for which Bardem won an Oscar), and it insists that whatever joys are in living, its miseries are heartbreaking and potent.The film also evokes the poet Philip Larkin’s line, “Man hands on misery to man,” particularly with respect to Leo’s relationship with his daughter. Leo’s a writer, and she aspires to be one. “You sacrificed your family for a book?” a young woman on the Greek island asks Leo, incredulous. In the New York setting, Fanning’s character loses a potential job while taking care of her father.Potter delivers her vision here in a form that’s perhaps too raw, too undistilled. There’s precious little lightness negotiating with the dark. Her lack of compromise is, as always, admirable — as is her way with actors. Laura Linney and Salma Hayek, among other cast members, do great work. But this is a movie one is apt to recommend with a caveat of “if you’re up for it.”The Roads Not TakenRated R for language and themes. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. More

Every “Oh wow” in “Human Nature” is matched by an “Oh no” somewhere down the line. Together, these two competing emotions — excitement and unease — make for one pretty fascinating documentary.The film, directed by Adam Bolt, explores Crispr technology, which, broadly speaking, can be used to snip out problematic parts of DNA — say, a portion that causes an illness — and replace them with different DNA, thus curing the ailment. Some versions of the process are already being deployed; this is, by and large, science fact rather than fiction.[embedded content]Employing Crispr for gene-editing has the potential to radically change human, animal and plant life. Besides removing unwanted DNA, Crispr might also be applied to add desired traits to an organism. As expected, there’s discussion of “designer babies,” eugenics and “improving” our species. There are enough ideas here to inspire a thousand sci-fi novels, not the least of which is a clip of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warning about the possibility of creating a soldier who cannot feel fear or pain.In place of a narrator, Bolt employs a first-rate crew of bioethicists, geneticists and researchers to guide the film, and provides interviews with patients who have diseases that could soon be cured. Chapter titles like “Brave New World” and “Playing God” set the tone, as does a shrewd score and some well-used animation that illustrates the basics of DNA.Thorny questions arise throughout “Being Human” over what we are and what, if anything, we should change about ourselves on a cellular level. Though the film usually takes a hopeful, pro-Crispr outlook, uncertainties still linger, as do fears over the future. As one biologist says, this isn’t just the start of a new era for the world — it’s the end of our beginning.Human NatureNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More

Pete Davidson, the “Saturday Night Live” bad boy, is a natural at playing the guy your parents want you to stay away from. His character in “Big Time Adolescence,” the tatted, platinum-haired, foul-mouthed Zeke, feels like an extension of the Davidson we see in the tabloids. A 23-year-old slacker who never grew up, Zeke spends his time smoking weed and being a bad influence on his fawning minion, the 16-year-old Mo (Griffin Gluck), his ex-girlfriend’s younger brother.Mo is endearingly nerdy, like Duckie from John Hughes’s “Pretty in Pink”; amusingly, Jon Cryer, who portrayed Duckie, plays Mo’s father. He pays Zeke as he would a babysitter.But under Zeke’s tutelage, Mo only wades further into trouble in this debut film by the writer-director Jason Orley. He starts selling drugs to upperclassmen at Zeke’s request, first at a “pimps and hos” party, where, among the flashy costumes, he appears in his father’s bathrobe with a gold chain.Then he tramples a blossoming romance with his crush, Sophie (Oona Laurence), after an ill-advised ghosting. Mo, not unexpectedly, crashes and burns while chasing Zeke’s approval.Though Davidson, Gluck and Laurence show star potential, Orley either boxes them into a too-conventional coming-of-age arc or gives them cloyingly charming characteristics: Mo, awkwardly, calls Sophie instead of texting her; Sophie always has a rapid-fire comeback ready; and Zeke is a walking stoner punchline. Despite some moments of tenderness and easy chemistry between Zeke and Mo, “Big Time Adolescence” doesn’t have enough heart or humor to save it from becoming just another movie about white dudes bro-ing out.Big Time AdolescenceRated R for teens partying too hard. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. More

“Heimat Is a Space in Time” observes Germany for more than a century through the experiences of one family. The bulk of this almost four-hour experimental essay film consists of the unseen writer-director, Thomas Heise, reading documents in voice-over — generally letters to and from his relatives, but also résumé drafts, diary entries and, from the Cold War era, a surveillance report.Heise’s recitations are accompanied by photographs and artifacts from the past or footage from contemporary Germany, particularly landscapes and city scenes. The contrast between the cataclysmic past and the placid present owes something to “Shoah,” Claude Lanzmann’s groundbreaking 1985 Holocaust film. But because most of the testimony in “Heimat” (the word roughly means “homeland”) is filtered through Heise, the structure seems even more oblique.[embedded content]Patterns emerge. In the 1930s, Thomas’s grandfather Wilhelm, a teacher, is forced to retire because his wife, Edith, is Jewish. In the 1960s, Thomas’s father, the philosopher Wolfgang Heise, is pushed out of a university position in East Berlin because he is perceived as insufficiently devoted to Communism.During a wrenching stretch, Heise reads letters from Edith’s sister and father as their Jewish neighbors in Vienna are rounded up by the Nazis, who eventually come for them as well. As we hear this correspondence, the camera scans a list of names that seems unending.Heise’s mode of filmmaking takes getting used to, and his omission of context leaves certain connections obscure, especially in the scattered final hour. But despite some tedious passages, “Heimat Is a Space in Time” takes an intriguing approach to history that remains refreshingly rooted in primary sources.Heimat Is a Space in TimeNot rated. In German, with subtitles. Running time: 3 hours 38 minutes. More