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      ‘Theater Camp’ Review: Cabin Into the Woods

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      In this bitterly-funny mockumentary set at a drama institute, the actors feel their characters in their bones.“Acting,” the Tony winner Ben Platt opines in character, “is remembering and choosing to forget.” “Theater Camp,” a fizzy mockumentary about growing up Gershwin, does both. Platt wrote it with three longtime pals, Molly Gordon (friends since toddlerhood), Nick Lieberman (friends since high school) and his fiancé, Noah Galvin, who, like Platt, played the lead role in Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen.” (Gordon and Lieberman also direct the film.) These former youth performers remember everything: desperate auditions, capricious rejections and a dawning concern that one’s dreams of stage success are as flimsy as spray-painted cardboard stars. But the camp counselors the four have created — exaggerations of ones they’ve known — disregard the trauma they’ve endured, and now, inflict on others. Call it summer Stockholm syndrome. And call their group therapy session a treat.Our setting is a drama institute named AdirondACTS, as scrawled in a tacky crayon font. Amos (Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Gordon) met here as children and, decades later, continue to haunt the one place that treats them like superstars. Broadway hasn’t beckoned. Nevertheless, every summer Amos and Rebecca-Diane hammer their wisdom into malleable minds.The careerist young campers are roughly the same maturity level as the adults. They’re also played by fantastic talents including Luke Islam, Alan Kim and Bailee Bonick, the latter of whom can hold a high note longer than the life span of a gnat. Still, the tykes know their role is to obediently absorb their coaches’ pep talks (“Peter Piper picked a priority”), threats (“This will break you”) and dubious opinions (“I do believe her as a French prostitute,” Amos whispers of a pigtailed 10-year-old).Failure wafts through the film, fastidiously unacknowledged. Here, a cruise ship callback and a repertory show in Sarasota represent the peak of achievable success. The grown-ups, who also include the costumer Gigi (Owen Thiele) and the dance instructor Clive (Nathan Lee Graham), resent any challenge to their artistic authority. “It says here you’re allergic to polyester,” Gigi huffs to a camper. “Why?” Later, when the story threatens to herd us toward that most hoary cliché — we gotta put on a show to save the school! — it’s a relief to realize that most characters can’t be bothered with that plot point, either. They’re creatives, babe. Capitalism is for clods like the owner’s son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a YouTube finance-bro who boasts of being an “en-Troy-preneur.”Gordon and Lieberman gesture faintly at a documentary structure. In the opening minutes, dry black-and-white intertitles barge into the action so often, you’re expecting them to claim that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. Soon after, the editing relaxes, the doc conceit wanders off and the film finds its rhythm as a string of bitterly funny vaudeville sketches that smack of Kool-Aid mixed with salt.Like many mostly improvised films, there’s a sense that half the story was abandoned on the cutting room floor. A late-breaking resolution hinges on a character who barely registers. Ayo Edebiri (from the television series “The Bear”) pops up as a first-time teacher with falsified experience in jousting and jugging — a promising gag, but she’s left to roam the margins, barely sharing any scenes with the rest of the cast. At one point, Galvin, playing a bashful stagehand, embarks on a tour of the cafeteria’s cliques. The scene stops at two. There’s just too much this film wants to cover.Clearly, the actors feel their characters in their bones. My favorite physical detail was how Platt’s Amos interrupts a bad rehearsal by leaping onstage in a showy frog hop, like Kermit giving ‘em the old razzle dazzle. How magical that, later, this floundering show-within-a-show is rescued when the children invest every ounce of moxie into belting Rebecca-Diane’s lame lyrics. Gusto can spin anything into gold.Theater CampRated PG-13 for spicy language and one adult slumber party. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Miracle Club’ Review: A Pleasant Pilgrimage

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      Set in 1967 Dublin, this mild-mannered comedy explores grief and grievances with an ensemble that includes Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.A camera soars above Dublin then glides toward a promontory where a solitary figure stands in front of a memorial plaque. A frothy score wrangles our emotions. Don’t get too sad, it seems to say, before the camera closes in on a sorrowful Lily Fox (Maggie Smith).Set in 1967, “The Miracle Club,” directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, touches on grief and grievances, on unwanted pregnancies and the Catholic Church, while wearing the guise of a redemptive romp. It’s a delicate balance that — even with the impressive triumvirate of Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney — the movie doesn’t always sustain.Lily’s sojourn is one of multiple pilgrimages in the movie. The central journey takes Lily and her two closest friends, plus the estranged daughter of a recently departed third, to Lourdes, France, where miracles are sought by masses of people each year. Agnes O’Casey plays Dolly, the youngest of the trio and the mother of a boy (Eric D. Smith) who seems unable to speak. But Dolly is not the only member of the group in need of a miracle.With her taut mouth and vigilant gaze, Linney is especially nuanced as Chrissie, the wounded but self-contained and observant interloper who returns from the United States after a 40-year rift. And amid the star power, O’Casey is something of a revelation as the upbeat but wavering Dolly.The actor Stephen Rea does fine, grumbling work as Frank, Eileen’s unhelpful husband who must step in and care for their many highly amused children. Will he have an epiphany about home and hearth? The movie leaves little doubt about the answer. Indeed, the menfolk left behind, and their needs and demands, would provide the women reason enough for a sojourn.Dispensing wisdom throughout, Father Dermot (Mark O’Halloran) persuades Chrissie to join the pilgrimage. Later, he’ll offer an impromptu homily on unmet expectations, one that is surprisingly apt for those hoping for a movie that transcends the pleasant. The filmmakers go for too-easy laughs; the movie doesn’t seem to trust its audience to sit with the pain, much less to find the achy humor in it, as a more assured film might. The actors here are good, but they are not miracle workers.The Miracle ClubRated PG-13 for thematic elements and mildly salty language. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Black Ice’ Review: A Troubled Hockey History

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      The Canadian filmmaker Hubert Davis amplifies the voices of hockey players of color and reveals the sport’s lesser-known pioneers in this smart, sensitive documentary.Hubert Davis’s “Black Ice” candidly and sensitively recounts the experiences of athletes of color in Canadian hockey, and racism endured at the hands of other players, coaches and fans. Letting the athletes speak for themselves, Davis balances infuriating and painful accounts of their experiences with a look at the extraordinary legacy of Canadian hockey players of color, which dates back to the Colored Hockey League founded in the 19th century.“Black Ice” feels analogous to Samuel Pollard’s recent documentary “The League,” which chronicles the achievements of Black baseball players in the United States. But Davis, a Canadian documentarian, zeros in on how hockey has been a vital part of his country’s identity, and what it has felt like for Canadian players of color who love the game to be told, from very young ages, that they do not belong.That reality clashes, the film explains, with both Canada’s self-perception as an ideal multicultural melting pot and hockey’s don’t-rock-the-boat team spirit. Akim Aliu, who in 2020 made news for speaking out about his coach’s racist slurs, is one of several men and women who testify to encountering offensive, exclusionary behavior at various levels of play — not just in the National Hockey League — while drawing on support from friends and family.The fascinating story of the Colored Hockey League, which pioneered fundamentals of the game (including the slapshot), is richly and revealingly intertwined with that of Africville, a Black community outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, razed amid protests in the 1960s. Showing programs to train programs to train young athletes of color and expand the ranks, Davis points toward a different future for hockey.Black IceRated R for strong language, including racial slurs. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Gray Matter’ Review: Unusual Abilities, the Usual Plot Possibilities

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      Things don’t go well when a teenage girl with mental superpowers ends up at a secret facility in this Max movie entirely devoid of suspense or character.Meko Winbush’s “Gray Matter” is the kind of run-of-the-mill sci-fi thriller that usually delights insomniac Tubi watchers at 3 a.m. Unfortunately, the movie is coming out under a harsh glare that does it no favors: Not only is it on the prestige streamer Max, but it premieres that same day as the 10-episode “Project Greenlight: A New Generation,” which documents its production process. This latest iteration of the docuseries created in 2001 has been rebooted under the aegis of Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani and Gina Prince-Bythewood; the show might end up being entertaining, but “Gray Matter” is by-the-numbers, by-committee product.Written by Philip Gelatt (the television series “Love, Death & Robots”), the movie follows the 16-year-old Aurora (Mia Isaac), who is sheltered from the outside world by her protective mother, Ayla (Jessica Frances Dukes, from “Ozark”). Ayla has been training her daughter to better control her “psionic” powers, which include telekinesis and telepathy (teleportation is advance-seminar level). One evening the teenager sneaks out to meet friends she’s made in secret and ends up losing control over her abilities, blowing the women’s careful constructed cover. The obligatory mysterious guy (Garret Dillahunt) whisks Aurora to a facility he describes as a safe haven for psionics — where this is going is predictable and dull.It’s not so much that “Gray Matter” is formula, but that it is clumsily made formula. Except, that is, for Isaac’s performance. The young actress projects a rare serious-mindedness that grounds the movie. Like a mentalist making a chunk of concrete magically levitate, Isaac almost keeps “Gray Matter” watchable.Gray MatterNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      ‘Bird Box Barcelona’ Review: Blind Faith

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      The blindfolds are back in this companion movie to Susanne Bier’s 2018 original as a traumatized man finds horrifying purpose in mass slaughter.In the mildly entertaining Sandra Bullock vehicle, “Bird Box,” alien invaders were presumed so fearsome to behold that all who gazed upon them immediately offed themselves. Possibly to save audiences from a similar fate, we were never permitted to see these terrors, leaving us as sightless as the movie’s scrabbling survivors.Another day, another postapocalyptic hellscape. Transplanting the basic premise to Spain, the directors Àlex Pastor and David Pastor have come up with a spinoff feature, “Bird Box Barcelona,” minus Bullock but with the addition of a rather nifty — and depressingly credible — faith-based twist. Nine months after the aliens’ arrival, an engineer named Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his young daughter (Alejandra Howard) are searching for survivors in a city where the remaining humans are as feared as the invaders. Yet as Sebastián gains the trust of successive ragtag groups, he soon reveals a purpose that’s far more terrifying than robbery.Shooting in and around Barcelona, the cinematographer Daniel Aranyó conjures an atmospheric dystopia of blasted buildings and ruined roadways. The dead and dying are everywhere, challenging the movie’s special-effects team to create ever-more-horrible avenues of self-harm. As Sebastián and an English psychologist (Georgina Campbell) seek refuge on a mountaintop fortress accessible solely by cable car, flashbacks illuminate the genesis of his twisted mission and the subtly shifting powers of the intruders.The result is a bleakly hopeless view of human nature that the finale, while cracking the door to a further expansion of the story, fails to refute. In that context, the introduction of religion as a central theme makes perfect sense: Who needs aliens, when belief has always been unrivaled in its ability to turn man against his brother?Bird Box BarcelonaNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Two Tickets to Greece’ Review: Advisory Travel

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      Former middle-school friends with clashing temperaments take an Aegean excursion in this contrived French fluff.In “Two Tickets to Greece,” Blandine (Olivia Côte), a depressed and divorced Frenchwoman, is pushed by her son to take a Hellenic excursion with Magalie (Laure Calamy), the middle-school best friend she lost touch with decades earlier. Magalie, now a free-spirited, impulsive music journalist, can find fun anywhere. Blandine, a buttoned-up radiology technician embittered by her ex-husband’s remarriage, seems incapable of experiencing fun at all.As teenagers, the two had planned to travel to the Greek island Amorgos, which entranced them in the 1988 movie “The Big Blue.” But when Magalie skimps on ferry tickets, the barely reunited pals wind up waylaid on a different, tiny island populated almost exclusively by archaeologists and surfers. And while Magalie will turn any location into a makeshift disco, Blandine, who refrains from a fling with a Belgian surfer, remains a stick in the Aegean mud.Calamy has by far the livelier part, and the energy dissipates whenever Magalie isn’t drawing attention to herself. When she and Blandine reach Mykonos, the movie brings aboard Kristin Scott Thomas — largely speaking fluent French — as Bijou, a hippie jewelry designer hiding from a British upper-crust background (and living with an artist played by Panos Koronis, of “The Lost Daughter” and “Before Midnight”).Bijou becomes an unofficial referee and wisdom dispenser for the central pair, as well as a facile expository device for the writer-director, Marc Fitoussi. Blandine — “bland,” per Bijou — and Magalie never totally reconcile their conflicting instincts, but “Two Tickets to Greece” is still pretty dopey and contrived, even if the scenery isn’t bad.Two Tickets to GreeceNot Rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Tubi Is Streaming Thrilling Films by New Black Directors for Free

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      In genre films like “Cinnamon” and “Murder City,” new voices are delivering genuine thrills with a loose energy and a generous sense of drama.Over the past few years, Tubi has quietly amassed a thriving collection of Black-led independent movies. This might come as news to anyone caught in an endless scroll of Netflix offerings, but not to Tubi’s loyal and growing following. These are movies that get right to the heart of the matter, like their titles: “Watch Your Back,” “Murder City” and “Twisted House Sitter.” In a way, they’re the latest successors to basic cable thrillers, straight-to-video, Lifetime movies, and low-budget B-cinema. But they have a loose energy and generous sense of drama all their own.“Cinnamon” is the first Tubi premiere under the banner Black Noir Cinema, an initiative led by Village Roadshow Pictures. It’s a nifty standard-bearer: a gas station attendant and aspiring singer, Jodi (Hailey Kilgore), and a pickpocket, Eddie (David Iacono), team up for an inside job. The robbery becomes a self-own when someone from a local crime family — led by Pam Grier — gets killed in the process. They lean hard on the gas station owner, Wally (Damon Wayans), and then zero in on Jodi and Eddie.The typical tangled tale of the get-rich-quick scheme is enhanced by some snappy setups and the bond between Jodi and Eddie, who has charm to burn. The film belongs to a general universe of indie crime capers, but the director, Bryian Keith Montgomery Jr., doesn’t take the air out of the story with a knowing approach. Yet there’s still room for the eccentricity of Wayans’s outmatched huckster, Wally, and Grier’s Mama, a taciturn kingpin who gives the go-ahead to kill with a flip of her shades.David Iacono and Hailey Kilgore play a young couple pulling off an inside job in “Cinnamon.”Zac Popik/Fox for TubiGrier’s presence evokes a whole vibrant history of Black crime dramas, and the logo for Black Noir Cinema — featuring a gun-toting, Afro-sporting, flared-sleeve heroine in silhouette — even seems a callback to the 1974 “Foxy Brown,” in which she starred as a vigilante posing as a call girl to bust a crime ring and avenge her boyfriend’s death. “Cinnamon” pays tribute to the grind — the years just ticking away for Jodi at the gas station and Eddie in his dead-end hustles — but this isn’t the same struggle through an underworld associated with Grier’s 1970s work. In a Variety interview about Black Noir Cinema, one of the film’s producers looked beyond the echoes: The initiative is about creating “Black folk heroes,” not recreating the blaxploitation genre.The “Noir” in the program title suggests the doomed men in classic Hollywood thrillers who bet everything on extremely iffy schemes, and that certainly could apply to “Murder City.” Mike Colter plays Neil, a cop kicked off the force and jailed for helping his debt-ridden father with a drug deal. Released from jail after a couple of years, he’s trapped into working for a ruthless mob boss, Ash (Stephanie Sigman), but still thinks he can wangle his way to a windfall and win back his wife’s trust. There’s a harder edge to his predicament than in much of “Cinnamon” — Ash especially is one cool customer — and a daisy-chain of double-crosses leaves viewers guessing at Neil’s chances till the final shootouts.“Murder City” also leans into a little heartstring-pulling with Neil’s efforts to resettle in his own home, where Ash has become a dubious benefactor to his wife and son. But the director, Michael D. Olmos, more often keeps up a simmering menace, deploying some noir lighting when Neil visits his father (Antonio Fargas, a “Foxy Brown” alum) in jail, and dropping the odd tough-guy one-liner exchange (“Go to hell!” “I probably will”).Mike Colter plays an ex-cop forced to work for a mob boss in “Murder City.”Hbk F.C./TubiThe “Black Noir Cinema” label shows that Tubi is doubling down on Black creators and viewers (who helped the streamer surpass the Max service in a recent measure of viewership share). But viewed against the rest of the lineup, “Murder City” suggests an aspiration to more polished and conventional versions of the shoestring productions that already flourish on Tubi. “Cinnamon” may have premiered at the Tribeca Festival, but titles like “If I Can’t” have launched a thousand TikToks marveling at their go-for-broke plotting and, sometimes, their no-budget fight scenes.“If I Can’t,” directed by and starring Tubi regular Mena Monroe, was recently listed as the most popular title on the streamer, probably for many of the same reasons that others might dismiss it as an over-the-top feature-length soap opera. But it also feels like an unfiltered update to a long tradition of I-will-survive melodrama: Harlem (Monroe) luxuriates in the doting treatment of her adoring husband — a recurring theme in Tubi’s assorted soon-to-be-doomed marriages — only to see him shot to death in front of her. She manages to heal and dates a new man — only to find herself the object of his physical and psychological abuse.Monroe’s soft-spoken manner and resilience make her a sympathetic center amid all the story’s ups and downs, which include being judged by others for staying too long with her abusive boyfriend. “If I Can’t” has a rolling momentum shared by many Tubi movies, cruising in and out of moments of passion, high drama and casual banter with a don’t-look-back ease that can make more cautiously plotted films feel a bit arid. You will not see “If I Can’t” opening the New York Film Festival, but this year’s actual opener, “May December,” relies on boundary-breaking melodrama and the truths that lie within.Mena Monroe and Tristin Fazekas in “If I Can’t,” recently listed as the most popular title on Tubi. Mena Monroe StudiosThere’s also no denying the ingenuity and efficiency of another independent Tubi offering, “Locked In,” from the Cleveland-based director David C. Snyder. (Tubi feels like a haven for non-Hollywood directors, with Detroit another hotbed for creation.) This 77-minute wonder starts with a puzzle — four women wake up confined in a blue-lit basement, strangers to one another — and unspools with the relaxed fun of a terrific bar story.Cutaways and flashbacks link a bank heist and a man named Locke, but a lot of the fun rests on the interplay and suspicions among the foursome (Myonnah Amonie, Brittany Mayti, Buddy Vonn, and the reliable scene-stealer Joi Roston). Amnesia runs rampant as they ponder what might have happened: “I have a boyfriend, but … I don’t think he crazy.” The film is unpredictable but necessarily more tightly constructed than “If I Can’t,” which contains all the betrayals, sudden deaths and pure what-now moments often found on Tubi.Far from everything on Tubi has the same flair, watchability, or even professional polish, as the TikTok hashtag #tubimoviesbelike attests. But as a home for independent Black filmmakers and viewers, it occupies a unique place right now. Especially when measured against the perils of one-size-fits-all studio content, the pleasures and the essential authenticity of the Tubi showcase can’t be ignored. More

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      ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Fans Are Ready for Their Double Feature

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      Some of the moviegoers planning on a “Barbenheimer” — seeing both on the same day — are relishing the incongruous subject matter of the two new releases.One movie is bursting with life-size doll houses and blowout parties and so, so much pink. The other tells the origin story of the deadliest weapon in human history.On July 21, with the opening of two of the most anticipated films of the year, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” thousands of fans will head to theaters to watch both movies on the same day — relishing the irony of seeing two star-studded films with such incongruous themes.“It’s a juxtaposition to show the brightest and darkest sides of the human imagination,” said Eden Schumer, a paralegal in Manhattan, who plans to wear a T-shirt featuring both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” designs to the theater. “You’re creating worlds and also destroying worlds.”This double feature — branded “Barbenheimer” by the internet — promises to be a cultural event, a movie buff’s dream and a magnet drawing people back to theaters even as the movie industry struggles to compete against streaming services and recover prepandemic engagement.More than 20,000 people have already purchased tickets to see “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” on the same day, according to Elizabeth Frank, the executive vice president of worldwide programming and chief content officer for AMC Theaters. From July 7 to July 10, AMC saw a 33 percent increase in the number of guests buying tickets for the double feature.Even one particular celebrity with his own high-profile movie is getting in on the action.Kevin Sabellico, a political consultant from Carlsbad, Calif., said he used to see movies multiple times a month, but stopped going during the pandemic. He hasn’t been to a theater in more than a year.“This is the event that will bring me back,” Sabellico said. “I don’t know why, but the duality of these films happening on the same day just has me captivated and wanting to see both on the big screen.”Like Sabellico, Jackson Kennedy, a graduate student at Stanford University, is ending a theatrical hiatus for the double feature.“I haven’t been to the theater this entire year, and now I’m going to spend all day in one,” he said.In which order should the movies be seen? The consensus seems to be “Oppenheimer” first: Take in the strong stuff, then end the night with a party.“My friends and I in Chicago are spending our day at the Alamo Drafthouse and seeing the films the way the Lord herself intended: ‘Oppenheimer’ at 10 a.m. with a black coffee / ‘Barbie’ at 4:20 p.m. with a big Diet Coke,” Andrea Ledesma, a marketing operations manager, wrote in an email.Rita Wenxin Wang of Brooklyn, who is also starting with “Oppenheimer,” decided to purchase tickets for the double feature after seeing dozens of memes and jokes juxtaposing the two movies online.“It feels more fun to end the night on a fun light movie than a serious movie where someone builds an atomic bomb,” Wang said.Many other double-feature moviegoers are putting their outfits together accordingly. Thomas Cuda, from Jacksonville, Fla., said he plans to dress with a subdued style for “Oppenheimer” in the morning, perhaps wearing a suit. For the afternoon “Barbie” showing, he has something flashy planned. For the past year, he has had a pair of pink jeans — a gift from his wife — sitting in his closet.“I haven’t ever had the courage to give them a try, but I will be busting them out for ‘Barbie,’” he said.Cuda couldn’t believe it when he found out the movies were both opening on July 21, a week and a half after his birthday. He decided to postpone his birthday celebration until next week.“We’re not going to spend any money. We’re going to save it all. We’re going big on release day,” he said. “For me this is probably the third most important day of the year behind my anniversary and Halloween.” More