I've reviewed films for more than 35 years. Current movie reviews of new theatrical releases and streaming films are added weekly to the Silver Screen Capture movie news site. Many capsule critiques originally appeared in expanded form in my syndicated Lights Camera Reaction column.
Ah, to be young, gifted, Black and a Lego! Director Morgan Neville’s remarkable stop-motion animated documentary Piece by Piece (B) chronicles the life and career of contemporary musician Pharrell Williams through the kaleidoscopic lens of swirling brick building blocks, with many African-American mini-figurines and whimsical instruments developed specifically for the movie. A singular display of synesthesia as the young trucker hat clad creator imagines beats and compositions coming to life in vivid colors and shapes, the story transports viewers from Virginia Beach garage band grassroots of our hero’s bands The Neptunes and N.E.R.D. to his heights of hit-making for the likes of Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg and more, not to mention his own iconic anthem “Happy.” The voice cast is stacked. In this unconventional autobiography, Williams is frontin’ faith, falsetto, future centricity and ferocity of imagination while conjuring soundscapes as both performer and producer. The subject finds himself carried away and getting comeuppance, enjoying jokey interludes and participating in solemn episodes of protest and unrest. Undoubtedly the adventurous animation brings the mystical melody and milkshake to the fanboys and girls in the yard, but the film too often skims the plastic surface, glossing over serious moments with mayhem and montage; and Pharrell’s five ho-hum original songs don’t add much to his already catchy catalogue. In terms of its visual palette, however, the movie is a Lego liquid rush of dreamers and drumlines, of freestylin’ and freewheeling creativity, transporting viewers to churches and cookouts, to studios and open seas, like a soulful Saint-Exupery expedition. The Lego aesthetic veers into a variety of textures: mock archival footage, behind the scenes segments, even rap videos and international travelogues with subtitles. The filmmakers’ purity of spirit and uplift and the sheer gorgeousness of the movie’s craft possess the artisan majesty of a picture book brought to life. The movie’s manner and style belie its subject’s seriousness; some will be tempted to drop it like it’s not for them. But this clever deconstruction of both a modern genius and the documentary form showcasing his life and times is undoubtedly Leg-it: a bountiful brick and block party capable of inspiring the next wunderkind of humble origins to dream big.
Trying out different environments for size, two longtime buddies contemplate changes afoot in their lives while embarking on a revelatory journey. Josh Greenbaum’s meditative documentary Will & Harper (A) traces a 17-day westbound road trip across America via station wagon with friends comic actor Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, a 61-year-old comic writer transitioning from male to female. Thoughtful questions, thorny run-ins, poignant discussions and witty encounters mark this life-affirming chronicle as Harper tells her goofy pal no question is off limits. Scored to a jukebox of great needle drops by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel and Bon Iver with some “Wagon Wheel” and “Luck Be a Lady” tossed in for good measure, the film contemplates the notion of living lonely versus living authentically out in the world. Joyful adventures abound, ranging from riding hot air balloons over Albuquerque to standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and the Mighty Mississippi. Acceptance comes in unexpected biker bars, just as a restaurant stopover results in a cascade of mean tweets. Ferrell, known for doing whatever it takes for comedy, tones it down to put his friend on a pedestal (several moments overwhelm him) and assembles some of their well-known Saturday Night Live collaborators for some bright cameos. The movie makes an important statement about friendship and acceptance without ever being preachy or treacly. It’s a beauty of a film.
The debate over box office tally size may be a non-starter as a buzzed-about biopic won’t likely recruit many butts onto its golden seats. An unflattering origin story preceding modern times of the 45th presidency of the United States, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (C) stars Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and traces his ascendant real estate career and moral ambiguities in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. Maria Bakalova appears as his wife Ivana, but that’s not really much of a focus; instead the film centers around Trump’s synergy with notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong. Both Stan and Strong are solid in their roles, and the imprinting of guiding principles about the importance of winning and the loose definition of truth make for an interesting exchange; but the film is heavy handed and provides few insights surprising to anyone who even slightly follows politics. Stan has the moves and mannerisms down like a champ for his portrait of a con artist as a young man. The movie wants to be like an Omen prequel but gives off “movie of the week” vibes with a little bit of language and nudity thrown in to make it edgier. It’s a film with neither the rage about the polarizing politician nor an effective character study about the men in full. The film gives both Cohn and Trump short shrift given the oversized drama of their real ambitions and back stories. Despite relatively competent filmmaking, this movie that looks to factor “bigly” into mass consciousness doesn’t measure up to much.
One of the best animated features ever committed to film, The Wild Robot (A+), written and directed by Chris Sanders based on a book series by Peter Brown, is a glorious must-see movie on the theme that kindness is a survival skill. Sure it has requisite robot chases and cute talking animals to please a full spectrum of family members, but this heartwarming parable will also leave you motivated and possibly deeply moved about what can be achieved when society comes together for the common good. It’s also a testament to “being more than you’re programmed for” in terms of acting with instincts of integrity. The story centers on Roz (voice of Lupita Nyong’o), a robot shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, who goes rogue and builds relationships with local wildlife and becomes the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose, Brightbill (Kit Connor). The film deftly handles the robot’s adaptation and translation of language so she can communicate with the likes of Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara and Ving Rhames as a wily fox, protective opossum and sage falcon, respectively. The film is a full-throttled beastly feast of expressive characters and expansive wilderness landscapes resembling paintings, thanks to production designer Raymond Zibach. It features a propulsive narrative against the backdrop of a memorable score by Kris Bowers and two soaring songs by Maren Morris. The film’s themes and touching tone are deeply resonant, so bring tissues as many of the sensitive sequences may prompt a watercooler waterworks, especially for parents. The voice ensemble is full of talented actors who drop great wisdom throughout the tale. It’s reassuring to see an animated movie in which all elements excel, and it surely will take its place in the pantheon of the year’s very best films.
Director Todd Phillips had a very novel approach for his 2019 take on the Joker character embodied by Joaquin Phoenix in an acclaimed, unhinged performance of the title role with Gotham City inhabitants in a “mean streets” milieu. Filmmaker Phillips and his star Phoenix return for the sequel, and although it has some flickers of inspiration and takes a big swing by being a hybrid courtroom drama in the form of a golden age musical, Joker: Folie a Deux (D) is an unmitigated disaster in execution. In an asylum while awaiting trial for a half dozen murders, Arthur Fleck/Joker meets a kindred spirit played by Lady Gaga, and a bad romance ensues, complete with real and imagined production numbers of showtunes such as “Get Happy,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “That’s Entertainment!” About one and a half of the musical numbers actually work, but with Joaquin croaking out a rocker voice and Gaga sing-whispering with little gusto to blend in duets, it’s not a pretty soundscape. I love musicals and cringed each time a song started. It’s mostly like a broken record. The film is all over the map in terms of tone and doesn’t clearly articulate its thesis if there is one. It is dull, drab and a chore to watch. Goodwill related to the first film’s originality is undercut with this debacle of a follow-up.
Attracting moviegoers to the in-theatre experience is re-invigorating techniques which would make classic movie impresario William Castle proud!
A24, in partnership with Joya Studio, has announced multi-sensory experience screenings of Heretic, exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse theaters nationwide for one-night-only October 30, 2024. This unique experience will fully immerse audiences in the cinematic journey by activating their sense of smell. A highlight of the film features the delightful aroma of blueberry pie, inviting viewers to savor the scent wafting through the theater during this moment in the film. Fans can also look out for exclusive treats and scratch-and-sniff cards at all other advanced screenings of Heretic nationwide on October 30, allowing them to actively participate in the experience and enjoy the aroma during this pivotal scene.
The film Heretic follows two young missionaries played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed, played against type by Hugh Grant, becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. Heretic hits theaters nationwide November 8.
A24 X Joya Studio genre-themed candles ranging from romcom to western
Joya Studio, known for innovative candles and fragrances, has long been a collaborator with A24. Joya produced an innovative line of genre-themed candles as well as products inspired by the Best Picture-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Joya’s atomization technology is a refined scent experience suiting any space or mood, employing cold-air diffusion to disperse scented molecules as fine, dry air — without the use of heat, water, alcohol or petrochemical-based solvents — creating a safe, eco-friendly and consistent experience. This is the purest possible expression, preserving not only the scent’s aesthetic integrity but also its therapeutic properties.
According to Heretic co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, “The blueberry pie is activated by Hugh Grant’s Mr. Reed as a metaphor for blind faith and a disturbing reminder to question everything. When we first heard A24’s bold idea to resurrect the multi-sensory experience to underline this crucial sequence, it made us howl with laughter. We’re so excited that audiences have this unique opportunity to be immersed in the world of the film.”
Frederick Bouchardy, founder of Joya Studio, adds he was “fully fired up” the moment he heard about this initiative. “We have enjoyed the collaboration with A24 for years, challenged our own vision with respect to scent design and R&D — always kept this element of humor involved, which I think is really missing from the fragrance world by and large. Every creation at Joya Studio reflects my personal belief in activating the senses, our aliveness. I happen to know that ‘blueberry pie’ translates beautifully in scent, believing we could and would create something at once sophisticated, mouth-watering, uncanny and funny.”
This new movie tie-in stands on the giants of many legendary uses of olfactory gimmicks offered in movie theatres dating back to the late ’50s when exhibitors were looking for a way to lure those smitten with new television contraptions to return to the glory of communal moviegoing.
Leveraging the sense of smell in cinema began with Smell-O-Vision, a system that released odor during the projection of a film via vials connected via tubes to theatre seats so viewers could physically smell what was happening in the movie. Created by Mike Todd Jr. and Hans Laube, the technique triggered by a film soundtrack and previewed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, made its only theatrical appearance in the 1960 film Scent of Mystery with a notorious tobacco scent at a critical moment.
An alternate process, AromaRama, invented by Charles Weiss, emitted scents through the air-conditioning system of a theater for the film Behind the Great Wall, which opened a mere month before Scent in December 1959. More than 70 different aromas ranging from fireworks to restaurants to horses to spices were injected into the theater during the film. Competition between these two scent-laden films was dubbed by Variety Magazine as “the battle of the smellies.”
The Odorama card from Polyester
In homage to these classic techniques, John Waters released an enhanced “Odorama” version of his 1981 film Polyester including scratch and sniff cards with ten numbered spots audiences could follow along with while watching the movie, with corresponding numbers flashing on the bottom of the screen to prompt a next waft.
The RugratsGo Wild scratch and sniff card
The 2003 animated film Rugrats Go Wild, the 2010 Norwegian film Kurt Josef Wagle and The Legend of the Fjord Witch and 2011’s family comedy Spy Kids: All the Time in the World also included scent cards distributed to moviegoers accompanying numbers on screen to unlock sequential scents. The latter was advertised as “4D Aroma-Scope.”
The Spy Kids 4 scratch and sniff card
Disney has used technologies evocative of classic inventions in U.S. theme park attractions including It’s Tough to Be a Bug!, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Horizons and Monsters, Inc.: Mike & Sully to the Rescue.
The Soarin’ Over California and Soarin’ Around the World films at Disneyland and Walt Disney World respectively inject fragrances into their vast auditoriums including orange and cherry blossoms, pine forests, grass and sea air as motion simulated scenery flies on a big screen below the passengers riding on faux hang gliders.
In 2006, Japanese telecom company NTT Communications developed a scent technique for Terrence Malick’s The New World. During seven key moments in the film, scents were emitted by an internet server linked to the film reel, downloading fragrances including floral scents for romantic sequences; peppermint and rosemary smells for tear-jerking moments; orange and grapefruit effects for scenes of joy; and the essence of eucalyptus, tea tree and herbs for sequences featuring angry characters and actions.
Regal Cinemas’ 18 theatres with “4DX” technology installed incorporate strong smells into the movie experience along with motion enabled chairs, fog and water and air to simulate wind and rain for movies such as Twisters. Scents are also included along with haptic sensations in Darren Aronofsky’s 2023 4D nature filmPostcard from Earth, playing exclusively at The Sphere in Las Vegas. This year a company Olorama has also introduced a scent device for the home to accompany films.
A24’s Heretic arrives in immersive form exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse theaters nationwide for one-night-only October 30, 2024. The film opens wide throughout the U.S. November 8.
Shoppers looking for rare, interesting and unusual items will welcome this upcoming liquidation sale of items used on movies and film sets. This unique collection presented by Peachtree Battle Estate Sales includes a few thousand props, furniture, home decor items and accessories, along with one-of-a-kind pieces. All items are available for purchase at an Atlanta warehouse location to be announced on Tuesday, October 29. The sale will take place October 30-November 3.
If you’re looking for a treasure hunt for the unexpected, check out this special sale as pallets are being unloaded daily. Imagine a 150,000 square feet football field array of props and items amassed from major films and television.
Robert and Christy Ahlers, founders of Ahlers and Ogletree Auction Gallery and Peachtree Battle Estate Sales, remarked, “We are excited to present this one-of-a-kind sale liquidating props and a wide variety of collectibles to the public from the film world.”
From ancient times to modern furniture and a variety of genres including antiques, rustic and trendy, you’ll find unusual items such as a life-sized subway train car to African masks, a whale replica, a medieval horse and line-up of canoes, suits of armor, home decor items and beyond.
When NBC’s SNL ushered in a new format of bawdy and topical sketch comedy nearly a half century ago, it arrived in the world via a most improbable birth. The 90 or so tense minutes leading up to the live pilot episode are the subject of Jason Reitman’s punchy, energetic ensemble dramedy Saturday Night (B+). Gabriel LaBelle masterfully plays optimistic show runner Lorne Michaels opposite an array of splendid fellow writers (a whip-smart Rachel Sennott and deadpan-droll Tommy Dewey are fantastic) and legendary on-air comedians (really solid impressionistic impersonations by Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris). The movie crackles with kinetic energy as last-minute wardrobe fitting, set building, camera testing and script doctoring activities collide with the madcap antics of these delirious denizens of the famed 30 Rockefeller Plaza studio. Reitman justifiably ribs the old guard of classic TV production in the form of a smarmy executive (Willem Dafoe) and a really dickish Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons) as he curates a near real-time portrait of art and anarchy in the making. The film is consistently entertaining, even if a bit lightweight in terms of story or substance. It’s a whirling dervish energy fueled showcase of how unusual and disparate ingredients collide like fermenting hops in a creative home-brew. The film offers the thrills of artists working at the top of their game in a pressure cooker, and it’s a bright return to form for Reitman who cracks open what seems like a familiar vault and unleashes a vibe of his own. The inventive comic syncopations he puts into motion will tickle and tantalize.
Earning high praise for ambition and scope but faltering in terms of story and tone, Francis Ford Coppola’s sprawling Megalopolis (C-) is a fever dream of a melodrama about characters contemplating the type of world in which they want to live. Seemingly primed to be prescient for election season, the contours aren’t colored with enough clarity to serve as a surefire clarion call. Adam Driver’s monotone character contemplates solutions in a conflicted fictional future U.S. city reminiscent of Manhattan with hints of Rome, and it’s not completely clear which characters are worth tracking at any given time. The movie is chock full of imaginative set pieces such as a press conference suspended over an urban diorama, a coliseum three-ring circus complete with a bacchanal and a virgin auction and an art deco skyscraper home of an invention lab, and yet the ponderous screenplay and insufficient visual effects consistently grind momentum to a halt. There’s ultimately a hopeful lilt to the proceedings about the quest for one’s personal utopia, but it’s too often blunted by characters finding themselves derailed (Dustin Hoffman), incomprehensible (Jon Voight), understated (Giancarlo Esposito) or underwritten (Shia LaBeouf). Actresses in the ensemble fare better including Aubrey Plaza who is witty and watchable as a spunky reporter, Talia Shire as Driver’s character’s sassy mom and Nathalie Emmanuel as his love interest from a rival family. The standout music by Osvaldo Noe Golijov punctuates the jarring proceedings with operatic bursts of bombast. The film’s tone careens wildly between sequences, rarely fixing itself upon a compelling narrative. There’s a singular interesting sequence of intrigue late in the film, one genuinely surprising jump scare and several lovely composite images, but the movie’s overall look and feel fails to match the scale of its set-up. Parallels between modern-day political shenanigans and Roman Empire machinations aren’t executed with consistent gravitas. And for its promise of a brave new world, much of the film is adrift, and the actors all seem to be occupying space in completely different movies. Neither meta conventions nor specific tiny details inspire the requisite alchemy to help this story cross the chasm to a place of either adequate art house or mainstream appeal. It’s clunky, well-meaning and may spark some conversations as an enduring curiosity from a cinematic master.
It’s generally cause for distress when your enchanted pumpkin carriage or lovable Mogwai has overextended forbidden activities beyond midnight. But age-old adages about the exact time when perceived Hollywood beauty expires go into audacious overtime in the contemporary satirical body horror film The Substance (A), written, directed and co-edited with glorious gore and gusto by Coralie Fargeat. A stunning Demi Moore lunges into a memorable central performance as a driven 50-year-old TV aerobics superstar facing career decline and experimenting with a black market medical regimen billed as a fountain of youth. Margaret Qualley occupies a symbiotic doppelganger role, an object of fantasy and fury in delicate balance with the leading lady. Both actresses are incredible in their mirror-image parts on various ends of the glamor spectrum, and it’s clear from how game they are in service to Fargeat’s vision that they are pursuing their roles with zero vanity. There are jaw-dropping sequences of blood and bombast, but the film’s watershed moment involves Moore’s character at the looking-glass, hesitating in numerous bittersweet ways as she prepares for a date because she doesn’t feel pretty. Benjamin Kracun’s candy-colored cinematography and Raffertie’s explosive score complement the outstanding 29-member makeup department and Emmanuelle Youchnovski’s standout costumes. Dennis Quaid and other male characters in the film are written quite broadly, which works well as parody but generates a distancing effect to interactions. Frequent allegory paints with a thick brush over a few inconvenient plot points. The overall grotesquerie will please ardent Fangoria Magazine readers but could turn away other viewers who would savor the fresh commentary. With her singularity of vision and hypnotic, horrific stylings, Fargeat invites comparisons to Kubrick, Cronenberg and De Palma but ironically could have nipped and tucked a few impulses causing the film to wear out its welcome long after making its point. This film itself is far from a fading star!
After a sparse sputtering pipeline of movie content following 2023 strikes and 2024 threats of same, an array of festival films and several high-profile “tent pole” multiplex motion pictures are finally about to be unleashed or streamed to the viewers of America.
Here’s our signature Silver Screen Capture take on ten categories of films to anticipate in the waning weeks of fall 2024. Nightbitches, green witches, barn burners and page turners plus many other surprises await on the big and small screen between September and December. Some are potential guilty pleasures, and others are Oscar ceremony bound! Grab your designer popcorn dispenser, and don one of those fancy moving seats (or just see movies straight-up like I do!), and get ready for some curious cinematic clusters.
Horror films are generally a highlight of fall, and with Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceand the Speak No Evil remake continuing domination in cinemas through Halloween, there are some others ready to exhibit like a jump-scare around the bend. Looking ahead, we get The Heretic with Hugh Grant as a nasty homeowner who terrorizes two visiting missionaries; Apartment 7A, a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby starring Julie Garner of Ozark as a struggling dancer in NYC finding herself drawn into dark forces; and the Nosferatu passion project remake of the 1922 silent film by cult film favorite Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) in which an ancient Transylvanian vampire (Bill Skarsgard of It and Barbarian) stalks a haunted young woman in 19th-century Germany. The latter wouldn’t be an obsessive gothic love story without a small part played by Eggers muse Willem Dafoe.
There’s no shortage of sequels this season, with Joaquin Phoenix reprising his Oscar-winning role of “Joker” Arthur Fleck opposite Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux. Director Todd Phillips is back at the helm. Two years after the events of the 2019 film, Joker is now a patient at Arkham Asylum, falls in love with his fetching fellow inmate, and the two experience musical madness as the antihero’s followers start a movement to liberate him. Director Ridley Scott returns to his Oscar-winning sword and sandals territory as well, with Gladiator II. The story follows Lucius (cerebral actor Paul Mescal, in his first all-out action arena), the former heir to the Roman Empire, who becomes a fighter after his home is invaded by the Roman army, led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal). Denzel Washington co-stars as a cunning mentor to our hero. Moana 2 continues the popular 2016 Disney animated adventure, reuniting the primary voice talents of the first film as our heroine is chosen by the ocean to battle the dreaded underworld gods and save the world. Curiously, although this is still a musical, this time she’s dreaming of the water without songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Two young actors with hoards of Internet fans and stans each have two prestigious films respectively coming out this fall Sebastian Stan plays a young Donald Trump being mentored by Roy Cohn Jeremy Strong in 70s and 80s New York in The Apprentice. The actor also plays A Different Man with neurofibromatosis undergoing surgery for a fresh start who becomes fixated on an actor with the same condition playing his real life story in a stage production based on his former life. Saoirse Ronin plays a woman coping with alcohol addiction in The Outrun, an autobiographical memoir of a Scottish journalist in a performance lauded at springs Sundance Film Festival She next stars in Steve McQueen’s WWII set film Blitz, in which she plays a distraught mother searching for her defiant son on a dangerous adventure in London. Will these two young stars compete against themselves for awards with this many dramatic takes in the mix?
Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket) is getting lots of buzz for his Cannes Palm d’Or winner Anora, a comedy drama starring actress Mikey Madison in the title role of an exotic dancer. The film follows her beleaguered romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. Moonlight director Barry Jenkins takes on Disney photorealistic animation with Mufasa: The Lion King, both a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake of the 1994 traditionally animated film. The musical drama is notable for the film debut of Blue Ivy Carter. And if there’s anyone who hasn’t heard, Francis Ford Coppola of Apocalypse Now and Godfather saga fame is releasing his self-funded dystopian opus of ideas, Megalopolis, in IMAX theatres. This epic indie stars Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Giancarlo Esposito, John Voight, Aubrey Plaza and more as a battle begins to rebuild a city after disaster. It’s pretty likely to polarize many audiences, but the promise of an unhinged fever dream from such a renowned director in a very experimental mode has been catnip for intrigued cinephiles. (Some of us have already visited Coppola’s Georgia hotel to spy artifacts).
Joaquin and Gaga aren’t the only crooners of fall, as an anticipated quartet of films in the pop, folk, opera and Broadway idioms are warming up for arrival. Musician Pharrell Williams tells the rhythmic story of his life and times via the LEGO aesthetic in the unconventional documentary Piece by Piece, featuring five new songs by the artist. Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Gwen Stefani also appear in mini-fig form. The Spanish language Emilia Perez by French director Jacques Audiard is a musical crime comedy based on Audiard’s own opera libretto. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascon) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldana), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self. This musical odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. Selena Gomez also has a buzzed-about role! The first half of the hit Broadway Land of Oz prequel musical saga Wicked comes to the screen with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as mismatched university roommates (the former is a green outcast) who discover a scandal in the Emerald City. The anticipated film is directed by Jon M. Chu, who helmed the little-seen but glorious adaptation ofIn the Heights after the hit Crazy Rich Asians. Wonka star Timothee Chalamet, who already earned praise this year in the Dune sequel, takes on the central role of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold (let’s hope it’s more Walk the Line thanIndiana Jones 5!)
Actresses are getting some superb showcases this year, and one of the most talked-about is the return of Demi Moore in The Substance, a cautionary tale as a fading celebrity and TV aerobics star who decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself, unknowingly giving her horrifying side effects. In addition to Moore’s audacious and vanity-free performance, Margaret Qualley is superb in this one. Angelina Jolie stars as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s Maria. It is the third and final film in Larrain’s trilogy of 20th century iconic women movies following Jackie andSpencer. Jolie is said to have a mesmerizing return to form in this psychological drama set during Callas’ final years in ’70s Paris. Nicole Kidman won the Venice Film Festival playing a high-powered CEO embroiled in a scandal in the erotic thriller Babygirl. Her character’s affair with a much younger intern (Harris Dickinson) sets off the plot of a film that explores the complexities of power dynamics and sexuality within a professional setting.
Get out your handkerchiefs for a heartwarming good cry. Robert Zemeckis reunites his Forrest Gump stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in Here, a story covering the events of a single spot of land and its inhabitants, spanning from the past to well into the future. De-aging effects will factor in, and we trust there will be no Polar Express eyes. Rachel Morrison’s inspiring sports biopic The Fire Inside chronicles female boxer and mixed martial artist Claressa “T. Rex” Shields played by Ryan Destiny alongside Brian Tyree Henry. The story takes place during the training for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh are paired in the romantic comedy drama We Live in Time, and Will Ferrell and longtime friend Harper Steele are the central characters of Will & Harper, a documentary road trip in which the comedian learns more about his friend’s gender transition. The filmmakers initially considered deliberately creating comedic moments but instead decided to let funny moments occur spontaneously along the touching journey.
Many legends of the fall film line-up are part of sprawling ensembles. Cooper Hoffman, Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennottand Dylan O’Brien are among the young cast of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, which chronicles the lunacy and real-time story about the night of the 1975 premiere of long-running TV comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live. Another movie, September 5, transports audiences to the 1972 Munich Olympics, when an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes. Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Ben Chaplin are among the cast. The psychological thriller Conclave, directed by Edward Berger (2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front), takes audiences inside the decisions of a cardinal (Ralph Fiennes) tasked with organizing the election of the successor to the deceased Pope as a secret is revealed. This dramatic tale also includes Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rosellini.
The high-brow offerings continues with Julianna Moore and Tilda Swinton in Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s first American-language feature, The Room Next Door. In the film, a woman’s strained relationship with her mother fractures completely when a misunderstanding drives them apart. Jesse Eisenberg directs and co-stars with Kieran Culkin A Real Pain about two mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist traces 30 years in the life of a Hungarian-born Jewish architect (Adrian Brody) who survives the Holocaust. After WWII, he emigrates with his wife (Felicity Jones) to the United States, where things do not go as planned. Set during the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson, adapted by Malcolm Washington from the August Wilson play, stars John David Washington, Danielle Deadwyler, Corey Hawkins and Samuel L. Jackson. The film follows the lives of a Pittsburgh family and a family piano heirloom decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor. Many who have seen the film say Deadwyler is a standout. And Luca Guadagnino, who already made a splash this year with the sexy tennis drama Challengers, returns with Queer, starring Daniel Craig in a romance set in ’40s Mexico. Not to be outdone by Kidman in Babygirl, Craig’s entanglement is also with someone much younger, played by Drew Starkey of Outer Banks.
There are an array of book adaptations coming to the screen. Undoubtedly many don’t measure up to their source material, but some will be revelations. The Nickel Boys movie directed by feature film newcomer RaMell Ross, is famously told from the camera’s first-person youth point of view. The story follows two African American boys sent to an abusive reform school called the Nickel Academy in ’60s Florida. Amy Adams stars in Nightbitch, adapted and directed by Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), the tale of a motherhood descending into mayhem with an “is it real or is it metaphor?” transformation into canine form. The latest Lord of the Rings adaptation is animated and subtitled The War of the Rohirrim and involves defending a kingdom from an army 183 years before the events of the live-action film trilogy. In a season in which Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong have films too, their Succession show dad Brian Cox plays the voice of the hot-tempered king in the fantasy adventure. Finally, based on a book series of the same name, The Wild Robot is an anticipated animated science fiction survival story directed by Chris Sanders with Lupita Nyong’o voicing the title character, an abandoned robot that was washed onto a forest island and learns to adapt to the new environment, partially by using her processing ability to learn how to communicate with native animals, and becomes an adoptive mother of a goose voiced by Kit Connor. Buoyed by a cast menagerie of stars playing animal characters (Catherine O’Hara as an opossum, Pedro Pascal as a fox, Ving Rhames as a falcon and more), it is set to be an unassuming cult sensation.
A debilitating accident that would have banished a mere mortal to a fortress of solitude instead prompts a popular actor to soar even higher as a crusading hero in Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui’s Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (A-). Nearly a decade since his passing, remembered through the eyes of those who knew and loved him, this bittersweet biographical documentary presents the Superman movie actor’s highs and lows as he endeavors to stay grounded in the wake of global superstardom, to break the cycle of a fractured family and distant father and to find power and meaning in his life’s work to advance stem cell science. After an equestrian competition tumble leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, the adrenaline junkie actor turns activist and becomes the man of the masses worthy of his mythic status. Flashbacks to his film career are brief and enjoyable, but this chronicle focuses more on the final chapter of Reeve’s life. It’s also a testament to the love of his life with wife Dana in an intimate and moving portrait of resilience. The film’s format is fairly straightforward, yet a strange connective device in which apparent Kryptonite starts growing on the spine of a cosmos-floating disembodied statue of the actor is not all that fetching. Interviews with the mother of two of Reeve’s children and with his trio of offspring plus fellow thespians Glenn Close, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Daniels and Susan Sarandon enliven the storytelling. And appearances by Christopher’s college roommate and lifelong friend Robin Williams add to the film’s plaintive portrait of a man with steely resolve. The tale of a man who changed the planet, daily, may also challenge viewers’ superpowers of stoicism.
