Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ Review: Growing Pains

      by

      In this Disney animated feature from the best-selling series of books, the lead character fearfully enters middle school.The Wimpy-verse is expanding again thanks to the dutiful animated feature “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” The characters created by Jeff Kinney in his best-selling books here enter middle school, a potential minefield of embarrassments and threats to friendship. Incarnated in gently bulbous, digitally smooth form, our hero, Greg Heffley (voiced by Brady Noon), runs through a good-natured medley of misadventures over 56 episodic minutes.Greg enjoys the companionship of his cylindrical buddy, Rowley (Ethan William Childress), but is driven by an abject fear of ostracism. Together they weather the dread of putting a foot wrong under the unfamiliar rules of middle school, whether that means saying “play” when you mean “hang out” or touching a fetid piece of cheese in the playground (a cherished conceit in the series). But the truest worry that Kinney’s characters explore is how friends survive transitions, and clash (as they do over being the cartoonist for the school paper).Greg — a stick-figure with Jughead-esque askew smile and a Charlie Brown wisp of hair — can be weak-willed and secretly nasty, especially toward Rowley. But the movie’s tone remains wholesome, unless you count the teenage bullies. These uncool degenerates are prone to reckless driving and, oddly, listening to Judas Priest’s 1980 hit “Breaking the Law.” Greg’s teen sib is a pill, too, especially next to his sage mom, antsy dad and supercute moppet kid-brother.The movie, directed by Swinton O. Scott III, plays like an extended series pilot, built out of largely interchangeable episodes. But its vacuum-packed, impersonal animation does bear one benefit: no live child actors onscreen who can age out of their roles.Diary of a Wimpy KidRated PG. Running time: 56 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      Alec Baldwin Says He Is Not Responsible for Fatal Shooting on ‘Rust’

      by

      In an emotional interview with ABC News, the actor asserted, ‘Someone put a live bullet in a gun.’The actor Alec Baldwin fiercely insisted he was not to blame in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western being filmed in New Mexico, claiming that another person had accidentally placed a live round in the gun that went off in his grasp as he was rehearsing a scene.“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Mr. Baldwin said in a television interview that was broadcast on Thursday night. “Someone is ​responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”Mr. Baldwin made the comments in an emotional ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, the first time that Mr. Baldwin has publicly given an account of what happened in October. The actor’s description of the episode may cast greater scrutiny on crew members and suppliers and the question of who was responsible for safeguarding firearms in the low-budget production.In the interview, excerpts from which had been released on Wednesday, Mr. Baldwin also said that he did not pull the trigger of the gun he was practicing with on the set of “Rust” when it fired a live round.“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them — never,” Mr. Baldwin said.The fatal shooting took place on Oct. 21 near Santa Fe, N.M., on a movie set designed to be a church. Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver that he had been told contained no live rounds when it suddenly fired, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.The cinematographer who was killed, Halyna Hutchins, was mourned in October at a candlelight vigil in Burbank, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Associated PressMr. Baldwin said that he was stunned by what happened and that at least 45 minutes passed after the gun went off before he realized that it could have contained a live round..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I stood over her for 60 seconds as she just laid there kind of in shock,” Mr. Baldwin said.The actor added that he did not cock the hammer of the gun, but pulled it back as far as he could and let it go in an action that might have set it off. “I let go of the hammer — bang, the gun goes off.”Investigators are seeking to determine how a live round got into the gun that Mr. Baldwin was practicing with, why the crew members who inspected it on set failed to notice, and why the gun fired.Mr. Baldwin’s contention that he had not pulled the trigger was supported by a lawyer for the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, who had been standing near Mr. Baldwin inside the church set when the gun fired.The lawyer, Lisa Torraco, told the ABC News show “Good Morning America” on Thursday that Mr. Halls had told her that “the entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard, parallel to the barrel.” She said Mr. Halls had told her that “since Day 1, he thought it was a misfire.”In the ABC interview, Mr. Baldwin also said he recalled that shortly before the shooting, Mr. Halls had told him, “This is a cold gun,” an industry term implying that firearm does not have live rounds and is safe to use.“When he’s saying, ‘This is a cold gun,’ what he’s saying to everybody on the set is, ‘You can relax,’” Mr. Baldwin said.Mr. Baldwin, who has come under intense criticism after the shooting, has already been questioned by detectives and is cooperating with the investigation. No one has been charged in connection with the shooting, and authorities have not placed blame on any individual.“I got countless people online saying, ‘You idiot, you never point a gun at someone,’” Mr. Baldwin said. “Well, unless you’re told it’s empty and it’s the director of photography who’s instructing you on the angle for a shot we’re going to do.”Some gun experts said it was possible that the gun, a single-action revolver, could have discharged without Mr. Baldwin’s pulling the trigger if he had pulled back the revolver’s hammer and released it before it was fully cocked. But they questioned whether that would have created enough force to fire the live round.Clay Van Sickle, a movie industry armorer who did not work on “Rust,” said guns generally go off only when someone pulls the trigger. “Unless that gun was in a horrible state of disrepair,” he said, “there is no other way that gun could have gone off.”As detectives work to trace the source of the live round, one focus has been on Seth Kenney, who supplied blanks and dummy rounds for the production.According to court documents filed on Tuesday, detectives are trying to determine whether Mr. Kenney sent live ammunition as well as blanks and dummies, and they have searched his business in Albuquerque, PDQ Arm & Prop.Mr. Kenney said in an interview that he was confident he was not the source of any live round.“It is not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally,” he told “Good Morning America.”Thell Reed, a weapons expert who has worked and consulted on a number of films, has told detectives that he supplied live rounds to Mr. Kenney for training on another film, according to court documents. Mr. Reed, who is the father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the “Rust” armorer, suggested they might match live rounds found on “Rust.”The film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, has told investigators, according to the court documents, that the ammunition on the set had come from “various sources” — from Mr. Kenney, but also from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who was said to have brought some from a previous production, and from a person identified only as “Billy Ray.”Since the fatal shooting, two crew members who were in the room when the gun went off have filed separate lawsuits, naming Mr. Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members including Mr. Halls and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed as defendants.Both lawsuits say Mr. Baldwin should have checked the gun himself to see whether it was safe to handle. In the interview, Mr. Baldwin said that on the day of the shooting, one of the plaintiffs touched his shoulder and said he bore no responsibility for what happened.Mr. Baldwin declined to say which plaintiff it was. Serge Svetnoy, one of the crew members who filed suit, told ABC that he did say that to Mr. Baldwin but later changed his mind.The actor insisted that the tragedy occurred after he was handed the gun and was told it was safe, and that Ms. Hutchins herself had told him how to position it. Both he and Ms. Hutchins assumed the gun was safe to handle, he said.“I am holding the gun where she told me to hold it,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I can’t imagine I’d ever do a movie that had a gun in it again.”Matt Stevens More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Advent Calendar’ Review: A December Full of Tricks and Treats

      by

      In this Christmastime French horror film, a woman struggles against a powerful, old demon eager to rope her into a Faustian bargain.“The Advent Calendar,” from the writer-director Patrick Ridremont, has all kinds of nasty delights behind its doors. This fever dream of a film packs love potions, evil stepmothers, benevolent devils, voodoo, sex, alternate realities and more into its 104 minutes. It is bizarre and dizzying and oddly beautiful in its fervor, as fantastical props and effects distract from the nonsensical plot. But this script also clumsily insists that its protagonist, a woman named Eva (Eugénie Derouand) who uses a wheelchair, is murderously obsessed with overcoming her disability.The greatest achievement of “The Advent Calendar” (streaming on Shudder) is its titular prop, designed by Christine Polis, Benoit Polveche and Thierry Gillet. It’s a grand, medieval-looking thing decked out in secret compartments and paintings of saints. Eva receives it as a birthday gift from her friend, Sophie (Honorine Magnier), who snatched it up at a Munich market. The calendar immediately presents Eva with a set of rules: Eat all the candy in the calendar or you’ll die, follow all of the calendar’s instructions or you’ll die, don’t throw away the calendar or you’ll die.“Sounds grim,” Eva remarks.“Germans are grim,” Sophie counters.As December unfolds, the calendar tantalizes Eva with wealth, love and perhaps even the chance to walk again — but it also demands sacrifices.Eva is apparently willing to forgo all morality to regain the use of her legs, a dubious representation of disability at best (made all the more questionable by casting a non-disabled person in the role). “The Advent Calendar” is certainly aware of ableism — Eva withstands all manner of insulting comments from co-workers and strangers — yet it hinges on a bloodthirsty desire to rid Eva of her disability. Although the script attempts to justify that desire for this particular character, as an act of representation, the film leaves a sour taste — particularly given the already bleak landscape for disabled characters in the horror genre.The Advent CalendarNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Single All the Way’ Review: Cookie Cutter Christmas

      by

      This Netflix holiday rom-com rests its family-friendly shenanigans on a display of chemistry that never materializes.In the warmly intentioned, but unfortunately frosty romantic comedy “Single All the Way,” Peter (Michael Urie) is a perpetual bachelor who finally has a boyfriend to bring home to his family for the holidays.But when Peter’s beau turns out to be someone else’s husband, Peter convinces his best friend, Nick (Philemon Chambers), to visit over Christmas instead. Nick is well-loved by the family — so much so that they hatch a matchmaking scheme for the two singles. Peter’s holly-jolly mother, Carole (Kathy Najimy), cajoles, but his father, siblings and nieces push the pair to help with kooky Aunt Sandy (Jennifer Coolidge) and her Christmas play, in hopes that the two friends might realize they’re better off as lovers.The director Michael Mayer creates an appealing twinkly backdrop for holiday shenanigans. But the warm-and-fuzzies promised by this Christmas comedy (streaming on Netflix) depend on a display of suppressed passion from Peter and Nick that would propel family members to scheme for their romantic union. Unfortunately, the chemistry between the characters never materializes.Peter and Nick are exceedingly polite, and frequently kept at a respectful distance from each other within the frame. This otherwise cheery movie is stingy with the longing glances or lingering touches that might suggest subterranean longing. At times it’s difficult to believe the pair as best friends, let alone as secretly pining admirers. Even their names suggest their generic anonymity.This lack of chemistry makes for lonely viewing, as if the film exists within a universe where the entire concepts of flirting, sexual tension or even baseline human rapport have yet to be discovered. The supporting cast compensates with piquancy in the side dishes, but the main course is a flavorless misfire.Single All the WayNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Red Pill’ Review: The Horror of a Weekend of Racism and Extremism

      by

      Tonya Pinkins is in the director’s chair for this bizarre face-off between political opponents in which rhetoric is the least of the weapons.“Red Pill” begins with a frenzied scene of cult violence, with faceless women dressed in red brutalizing a pregnant Black woman. Then it takes a jarring step back in time to greener pastures. In a hat tip to “The Shining,” an aerial shot captures an S.U.V. making its way through winding backcountry roads. Just as agonizing as the screaming and blood of the opening, if not more so, is the conversation inside the car where members of a progressive canvassing group, on its way to recruit white female voters, talks politics nonstop.Cheery alternative rock music and a pit stop that involves the diverse group of friends’ tearing down a racist sign suggest that the filmmaker, the Tony-winning actress Tonya Pinkins, has satirical objectives. But this wonky political horror movie turns out to be painfully earnest and gauche to the point of confusion.The film takes place around Halloween, in the days leading up to the 2020 election. Nothing feels right at the Airbnb that Cassandra (Pinkins) and her pals arranged. It’s filled with creepy, portraits of googly-eyed animals, while in the surrounding neighborhood, white women in black uniforms stand at attention on their front lawns.Before too long, the friends — Nick is Jewish, Blake is Black, Bobby (the Grammy-winning musician Rubén Blades) is Latino — are hunted down and some are lynched. While Cassandra clearly suspects the violence is racially motivated, the other members fail to grasp the obvious.So is this B-movie camp? Stilted performances and a script seemingly generated by a machine certainly make things feel sillier than they ought to be, as does a nightmare sequence involving people dressed in lion costumes straight out of an amateur theater production. But the main issue is the film’s trite commentary on America’s political and racial divides (see also: last year’s “The Hunt”), which is neither funny, frightening, nor provocative. Just numbing.Red PillNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 50 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Wolf’ Review: Animal Behavior

      by

      This psychological thriller unfolds in a brutal clinic for young people who feel they are animals trapped in human bodies.In the most powerful scene in “Wolf,” a haunting psychological thriller, Jacob (George MacKay) kneels before a caged wild animal. Like the creature, Jacob feels trapped: He believes he is a wolf born as a human.His body isn’t his only cage. When the story begins, Jacob is committed to a conversion clinic run by a man called the Zookeeper (Paddy Considine). The institute’s young patients — who identify variously, including as a panda, squirrel and spider — endure therapies designed to tame and civilize them. It is no coincidence, however, that it is the overseers who come off as the savage brutes: To convince one resident that she is a girl, not a parrot, the Zookeeper dangles her out of a window and challenges her to fly.At first, Jacob is a vacant and uncomplaining patient. But some nights, he lets the wolf inside take over, his deltoids undulating as he prowls on all fours. He finds a companion in Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), a troubled, longtime resident of the center who bonds with Jacob on an animal level.Written and directed by Nathalie Biancheri, the movie maintains a mostly even tone. Despite dashes of uncanny humor, Biancheri directs with remove. The downside to this approach is that certain sequences tend to feel like acting exercises, and though MacKay and Depp perform with devoted bodily fervor, it’s hard to connect to their characters.Still, Biancheri’s imagery is consistently evocative, and her interest in how captivity affects dignity at times recalls the work of Yorgos Lanthimos. Only near the end will the story really give you pause, when it verges on explaining away species dysphoria as a trauma response. “Wolf” may lead with an open curiosity, but in tackling big ideas about identity, openness is not always enough.WolfRated R for dehumanization, desired or not. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Silent Night’ Review: Waiting for the End of the World

      by

      In this feature from Camille Griffin, a group of friends facing global disaster have one last Christmas dinner.Production of “Silent Night,” a survival horror film directed by Camille Griffin, started before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s hard not to watch and interpret it within that context.The film follows a group of friends who spend Christmas at an idyllic countryside cottage in rural England with Nell (Keira Knightley), Simon (Matthew Goode) and their three children. Behind the Christmas cheer, it’s clear that the world outside the cottage is in peril, and the friends have made a pact to make a drastic escape.The danger is never fully explained, but there appears to be a noxious cloud of toxins engulfing the Earth that painfully kills those exposed to it. Throughout, the children often serve as proxies for adults, engaging in political conversations while their parents reminisce or talk about who slept with whom in high school. Art (Roman Griffin Davis), one of Nell’s children, watches videos online that seem to contradict his parents’ messaging, and he starts to question their choices.The timing of “Silent Night” makes it destined to be viewed as a Covid-19 film, but it’s actually about climate change and the government’s inaction in the crisis. It’s an eerie movie that emphasizes the ways in which children are vulnerable to adults’ decisions, and how the wealthy skirt responsibility and protect their own. Most of the adult characters seem to be living inside a conspiracy theory, blinded by their own fear and resigned to their impending doom. But the characters, despite their histrionic representation of the wealthy class, are not compelling enough to carry the movie, nor are the horrors of the outside world fleshed out enough to frighten. Ultimately, the movie seems to ask: In the face of a dying world, should we give up or stay and fight?Silent NightNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters and on AMC+. More

    • 50 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Benedetta’ Review: Habit Storming

      by

      Paul Verhoeven takes us to a nunnery where faith, eroticism and the Black Death make for an unholy good time.Close watchers of Paul Verhoeven’s career might conclude that he was always headed toward “Benedetta,” a movie torn equally between the sacred and the profane. Mania, masochism and a sex toy whittled from a figurine of the Blessed Virgin, they’re all here and more in this tale of a randy nun whose religious visions and lustful cravings are rolled into a single ball of blasphemy. In other words, Verhoeven might have aged (he’s now 83), but his love of the lurid has dimmed not one bit.Nor has his eye for juicy material. Ducking for cover behind the familiar legend, “Inspired by real events” (documented in Judith C. Brown’s 1986 book “Immodest Acts”), the maestro who brought us “Basic Instinct” (1992) and “Showgirls” (1995) plunges us into 17th-century Italy where piety and pestilence are duking it out. Inside the walls of one Tuscan convent, though, all is serene — at least until a statue of the Virgin topples on top of a child novice named Benedetta (Elena Plonka). Immediately, the miraculously unharmed youngster latches on to Our Lady’s bared plaster breast: To Benedetta, earthly and spiritual ecstasy are one and the same.By the time she’s 18, Benedetta (now played by the gorgeous Virginie Efira) is experiencing erotic visions of a naked Jesus, as sexless as a Ken doll, instructing her to remove her clothing. Her suddenly flowering stigmata and belief that she has a hotline to the Almighty have alienated her fellow nuns, especially when she ousts the convent’s calculating Abbess (a sly Charlotte Rampling) by promising to pray the plague away from the terrified townsfolk. So when Benedetta’s dalliance with a fiery novitiate (Daphne Patakia) — who has been given sanctuary from her rapey father and brothers — is discovered, the Church’s response is conflicted. After all, there’s money in miracles.Unable to decide if its namesake is saint or sinner, genuine mystic or false prophet, “Benedetta” is too ambivalent to find focus or resolution. Still, Verhoeven brings more vitality to his work than many filmmakers half his age, and his screenplay (with David Birke) is a tasteless hoot, gleefully cramming the frame with blood, fornication and flagellations galore. Without philosophizing over religious repression — or who gets to adjudicate Divine intent — the movie presents lesbianism as a middle finger to Church power, insisting that bodily pleasures don’t have to be bad for the soul. Should this be Verhoeven’s swan song, that’s a perfectly fine sign-off.BenedettaNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More