Translating a stage musical based on a non-musical movie back into a film musical is a tricky translation (musicalized movies of The Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray and The Color Purple largely worked, while 2005’s The Producers was a slog). The 2025 film Kiss of the Spider Woman (C+), directed by Bill Condon and based on the original Oscar-winning 1985 movie and its 1993 Kander & Ebb Broadway musical adaptation, suffers from awkward pacing, tonal dissonance and, ironically, an inert staginess. The premise, that an odd couple of Argentine political prisoners bond over a parallel tale of a classic movie star in an iconic double role including the titular character embodied by Jennifer Lopez. Tonatiuh and Diego Luna are terrific as the inmates, doing their best possible acting in a format conceit that can’t quite figure out if the prison-set framing device is the central story or the Technicolor film-within-the-film actually is. Lopez acquits herself admirably with good singing and excellent dancing – and style for days – but still her work is a bit distant. Plus the musical numbers, sometimes inventively realized, don’t often move the narrative forward. Strangely some of the film’s final act sequences reflect Condon’s aim, but the movie fails to fully come together for much of its duration. Art direction and costumes are strong. Alas the potential for razzle dazzle here proves as dim as its likely awards prospects.
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has honed a singular cottage filmmaking industry lending a sympathetic gaze to insular groups such as the denizens of the Hollywood hills, religious cultists, oil tycoons and fashion house provocateurs. Now he leverages the lives of an interlocking series of domestic terrorists to make points about humanity and society, with mixed and sometimes muddled results. His One Battle After Another (B-) explores the notion of passing along to a next generation an uncanny revolutionary spirit via the explosive relationship of American vigilantes played by Teyana Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio and their teenage offspring played by newcomer Chase Infiniti. In modern times, DiCaprio’s character is regularly killing a few brain cells, but he’s also a protective father living off the grid who gets pulled into a propulsive powder-keg when a villain from the past (a white supremacist military man played by Sean Penn) threatens his beloved daughter. Anderson’s kinetic visual style is well-suited to a series of action set pieces traversing cramped immigrant camps and hideaways, the wide desert canvas of hilly highways and the parkour of it all with escapes atop and across city rooftops. The movie’s story and script are lacking, and the characterizations lose focus amidst the progressive acts of chaos. The film’s long running time, seemingly enough space to adequately explore its characters, strangely sidelines and shortchanges members of its otherwise fascinating family. Penn actually gets the showiest part, but even the choices he makes in portraying this quirky character don’t always make complete sense. The film is frisky and funniest when featuring DiCaprio’s misanthropic humor as his character forgets passwords and chides those easily triggered. Despite some grace notes in the final act, Anderson doesn’t fully sell his thesis, and his hot takes aren’t even pointed enough to provide direct allegory for contemporary times. This loose adaptation of the novel Vineland is either an overlong lark or a short shrift to characters needing more developing. It’s sometimes PTA’s perpetual prattle that keeps happening again and again.
This is a movie in which acting itself is a combat sport. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt offer transformative performances, but it’s not always clear to what end in Benny Safdie’s real-life mixed martial arts fighting origin story The Smashing Machine (C+). Johnson plays MMA fighter Mark Kerr at the plateau of career success while simultaneously fighting painkiller addiction and a toxic marriage. It’s a film of very few surprises. Safdie’s watchful camera traces the pugilistic protagonist through globetrotting sports adventures and intimate domestic drama sequences, all the while artfully showcasing the man’s bombast and vulnerability. Emily Blunt is feral in her role as the spouse competing for his attention versus the sport itself. She chews whatever scenery her husband isn’t smashing; it’s a bit like another universe is calling and wants her performance back. Ryan Bader as Kerr’s longtime friend and fellow fighter actually comes across most interesting in the mix with empathetic Everyman appeal. It’s refreshing to see Johnson try a more overtly dramatic role on for size, and he acquits himself admirably on the journey, fully inhabiting a real guy seemingly very different from his own persona. Alas the film’s story doesn’t fully deliver on what clearly fascinated its makers, and no amount of artifice can conceal it’s just not all that interesting. In fact, at its most indulgent moments, the film feels a bit fabricated for awards season clip reels. See 2011’s Warrior for a more absorbing and nuanced take on the drama which can be harvested from the MMA.
Call it a self-help book on film for becoming a man. It may be based on one of Stephen King’s earliest writings from 1979, but the grim dystopian domestic future of Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk (B+) now feels like it could be happening in today’s America a few weeks or months from now, with lessons of utmost consequence. The fleeting facade of wistful young male life gets full anthropological examination here, prescient in a week characterized by cauldrons of vengeance, violence, chasms of disagreement and debate about forgiveness, martyrdom and legacy playing out in real time on everyone’s feeds, cable news and conversations. The story goes like this: Each year a group of 50 fresh-faced young men take part in a televised walking contest across a stark, abandoned U.S. highway, marching continuously or else they’ll be individually executed, until only one remains. The film zeroes in on one of these consorts making their mostly futile trek. Although undoubtedly an allegory for a Vietnam War platoon when written, the reverse-purge survival of the fittest events depicted in the film, set in totalitarian times, reveal a stunningly diverse set of behaviors about male bonding, toxicity and both hopeless and hopeful life philosophies not so far removed from young male life in the evolving experiment of today. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are flat-out phenomenal as the dual protagonists who become best friends on the journey; they provide indelible characterizations and much of the heart and humor in an otherwise brutal environment along the intersection of Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Marquis de Sade. There are such shades here of King’s own The Shawshank Redemption (unexpected venue for spiritual dialogue) and the Lawrence-directed The Hunger Games (lottery ticket with human stakes), it’s no wonder the source material and director were so lock-stepped. Mark Hamill is nearly unrecognizable as a ubiquitous hybrid TV host/drill sergeant who is chilling but underdeveloped in his blissful menace. The film opts to be very graphic in its parade of cranium kills, and candid in its language and depiction of anatomical challenges along the journey, almost daring audiences to turn a wincing eye from the horrors of the propulsive proceedings. The very nature of the film being told in what amounts to near perpetual motion makes for a singular experience of naturalistic moviemaking. Many details about the story’s exact time and location are left to the imagination, a la Civil War, a curious choice sometimes freeing and equally often perplexing. Evoking the literate and pop culturally attuned characters of The Outsiders or Stand by Me, there’s a feeling this talented ensemble is recognizing its place in a Mark Twain meets Aldous Huxley universe, or even Biblical end times, grasping for the meaning of it all. It’s a very tough watch but thoughtful and rewarding to those on its wavelength. There are universal takeaways and truths in what feels both contemporary and bygone. For all of its chilling carnage, this sturdy dying-of-age film reveals glimmers of hope about how people can attune personal outlook to approach every next step with purpose.
Note: Thanks to Out On Film for an early screening as this buzzy Sundance acquisition gets a theatrical run in select markets starting this week.
Between seclusion from common COVID-era customs, confusion over gender roles, delusion over modern etiquette and illusions of relationships forged online or in video games, it’s no wonder IRL has mainly been WTF, and male friendships have become a contemporary casualty. Following a riff on similar themes in this summer’s Friendship, James Sweeney writes and directs Twinless (B+) in which he also co-stars as a gay man who meets a straight man in a support group for people whose twins have passed away, and the memories of lost siblings are stand-ins for the macro mystery of fallen fraternity and restoration of the bygone brotherly bond. Although Sweeney’s character’s “sus” motivations tend to derail the most realistic parts of the droll dramedy, his Dennis benefits from acting opposite Dylan O’Brien’s brilliant takes as the hot-tempered and sometimes air-headed Roman and his confident flamboyant flashback brother Rocky. He’s doubly an on-screen revelation. The film’s fog of grief and despair is soon punctuated by displays of public bonhomie: shooting whiskey, cutting up courtside and co-crooning with abandon behind the wheel. Aisling Franciosi is terrific as the workmate of Dennis and love interest of Roman caught slackjawed amidst the bromantic bliss and bluster. Greg Cotten’s cinematography smartly evokes two parts of a whole in so many ways, via reflective surfaces and split screens and even divided sandwiches, viewers will truly discover visually and viscerally how the other half lives. Add to all this a very memorable score by Jung Jae-il, and it’s a stunning original marked by offbeat humor and universal yearning. The filmmaker is willing to face some ugly truths as he holds a mirror up to the modern world and finds what may look like identical scenarios to some can actually harbor multitudes.
The animated Lesbian Space Princess, documentary The Librarians and the buzzy Tom Blyth/Russell Tovey drama Plainclothes are among the high-profile films in one of the most diverse festivals in the country.
Atlanta’s preeminent, Oscar-qualifying film festival Out On Film today announced its provocative 2025 “Queer Propaganda”’-themed full lineup, marking the event’s 38th year of bringing the most anticipated LGBTQ+ films and documentaries to Southern audiences and nationwide via streaming. Festival ticket packages are available now at outonfilm.org. Presented by GILEAD, festival screenings, Q&As, and panels will take place at the historic Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema and Out Front Theatre Company.
Out On Film 38 will offer 38 features and 105 shorts films. In all, Out On Film will host nine world premieres, four international premieres, 10 U.S. premieres and 32 regional premieres as part of the 2025 festival.
The Opening Night film set for the September 25-October 5, 2025 festival is the documentary I Was Born This Way directed by Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard, which spotlights how pioneering disco artist Carl Bean’s 1977 anthem became a cultural milestone for LGBTQ+ music. Through interviews with music legends such as Lady Gaga, Billy Porter, Questlove and Dionne Warwick, the story unfolds of Archbishop Bean’s groundbreaking impact on queer representation in mainstream culture in this exceptional, empowering documentary.
The festival’s six centerpiece films are the following:
Assembly – A documentary feature directed by Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symon and recipient of 2024’s inaugural Out On Film Filmmaker Fund Award, this film follows visionary artist Newsome as he transforms a historic military facility into a Black queer utopia, blending art, AI and performance. Through stunning visuals and deeply personal performances, the film captures the transformative power of creativity as a fractured community comes together to find strength, solidarity and liberation. See its trailer here.
Exit Interviews – The debut feature from Atlanta Comedy Theater owner Garrett Abd, this independent film explores the complicated emotional terrain of love, regret and personal reflection through the lens of one man’s journey to confront the ghosts of his past relationships head on. Trailer
Fairyland – Based on the acclaimed memoir of the same name by Alysia Abbott, this coming-of-age story is set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene in the ‘70s and ’80s. Andrew Durham’s directorial debut is produced by Sofia Coppola and chronicles a father and daughter relationship as it evolves through an era of bohemian decadence to the sober and heartbreaking era of the AIDS crisis. The film stars Emilia Jones of CODA, Scoot McNairy, Cody Fern, Maria Bakalova and Bella Murphy with Adam Lambert and Geena Davis and newcomer Nessa Dougherty. Trailer
Lesbian Space Princess – This crowd-pleasing, award-winning animated feature by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese centers on a space princess thrust out of her sheltered life and into a galactic quest to save her bounty hunter ex-girlfriend from the “Straight White Maliens.” Trailer
The Librarians – Documentarian Kim A. Snyder, hot off her 2025 Oscar-nominated Death By Numbers, showcases librarians emerging as first responders in the fight for democracy, free access to information and First Amendment Rights. When an unprecedented wave of book banning largely addressing race and LGBTQ+ issues is sparked in Texas, Florida and beyond, librarians under siege join forces as unlikely defenders fighting for intellectual freedom on the front lines.
Plainclothes– Promising undercover agent Lucas (Tom Blyth), assigned to lure and arrest gay men at a shopping center, defies professional orders when he falls in love with a target, Andrew (Russell Tovey). Director Carmen Emmi’s gripping feature film charts the unexpected relationship between the two men and Lucas’ internal growth. This was a big hit at Sundance, reviewed here on SilverScreenCapture. Trailer
Out On Film Closing Night Movie: Four Mothers
The festival’s Closing Night movie will be the heartwarming Irish feature Four Mothers, directed by Darren Thornton. A struggling novelist in Dublin, planning for an upcoming book tour, is forced to take care of three eccentric older women – and his own mother, recovering from a stroke – over the course of one chaotic weekend in Dublin in this warm and funny crowd pleaser. Starring James McArdle (Andor), this film won the Audience Award at the BFI London Film Festival.
Photo of Angelica Ross by Gerson Lopes
In addition, Out On Film festival is honoring Actress/Singer-Songwriter/TransTech Social Enterprises Founder and CEO/Transgender Rights Advocate Angelica Ross of Pose as its 2025 Icon Award winner. Her award will be presented at an in-person, free ceremony at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema September 30 at noon.
“In a year where our rights are being threatened and taken away, it’s as important as ever to stand up and show we are around – and not going anywhere,” said Out On Film Festival Director Jim Farmer.
Regarding this year’s theme, Executive Director Justice Obiaya explains, “In a time when ‘Queer Propaganda’ is used as a political weapon to shame, censor, and vilify LGBTQ+ lives, we’re reclaiming it. At Out On Film, we’re turning the term on its head and making it our own. Queer Propaganda isn’t about pushing an agenda; it’s about telling the truth. It’s about reclaiming our right to be seen, to be heard, and to shape the narrative. Our stories build empathy. They reflect the world as it truly is: diverse, complex, and beautifully queer. In the face of rising backlash and politicized attacks, we’re not backing down. We’re leaning in, louder, prouder, and more united than ever.”
More films and events will be announced closer to the festival. Follow the festival here. And check out the trailer:
Actress Margaret Qualley nearly tames the basest instincts of one half of a talented sibling filmmaking team as Ethan Coen co-writes and directs the offbeat dark comedy mystery Honey Don’t! (C+). What a difference a partner in crime makes, as Ethan trades his brotherly collaborator to instead riff with former editor, now co-writer Tricia Cooke; and from the pulp friction of a detective neo-noir and lesbian romance spawns an unexpected lovechild. The movie is often a battle between the director’s own clever conceits and some dubious daydreams, and impulse control is rarely the victor. Still, Qualley towers above it all in a commanding role as an idiosyncratic private eye investigating crimes connected to a hack minister (an outrageously funny Chris Evans) while simultaneously romancing a police officer (deadpan dreamy Aubrey Plaza). The film, set in a sun-drenched milieu, has its share of spry surprises but doesn’t add up to a cohesive whole. It’s like a mid-season TV episode story got served instead of the impressive pilot.
From discordant opening sequences to a transcendent finale, the Spike Lee’s latest operates in an auspicious plane as “most improved Joint.” Highest 2 Lowest (B-), playing in select theatres before streaming on Apple+, is Lee’s neo-noir remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 High and Low, and Lee makes the story completely his own with contemporary themes about public image, wealth and morality. The director appears to have a lot on his mind, including how to spend one’s time making art and impacting society; there are artifacts throughout the protagonist’s home and world showcasing the giants of history on whose shoulders its characters stand. The plot is centered on a charismatic but stoic music mogul played by Denzel Washington, with small parts for his wife (Ilfenesh Hadera) and his chauffeur/henchman (Jeffrey Wright), who get much less to do. Together this trio confronts double-crosses in ways that feel at first overly melodramatic and ultimately cathartic. The ensemble also includes music artists ASAP Rocky and Ice Spice creating original characters plus basketballer Rick Fox, actors Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos and pianist Eddie Palmieri inexplicably playing themselves. The film’s first act leans too much into subversive symbolism with sparse characters posed and juxtaposed against a towering NYC/Brooklyn borderland and an all-too-perfect family underscored by a fussy score. The Howard Drossin music massively improves and makes better sense as the film moves into more kinetic action; it’s soon downright rousing. There’s lots to recommend for viewers who hang in there for the full parable, not the least of which is another towering and nuanced performance by Washington. The parts of the film which are twisty are nifty; other lumpy portions work in circulative spurts. It’s esoteric, genre-defying and largely entertaining with a narrative examining modern anxieties and legacy.
As horror movie writer/director, Zach Cregger is best known for depicting the underbelly of a double-booked vacation rental home, but his widening scope to the milieu of eerie suburbia makes for a next fascinating filmmaking frontier. There goes the neighborhood in the suspense thriller Weapons (A) as the multi-hyphenate auteur (he’s also a very good composer here) unveils the intriguing premise that all but one elementary school classmates exit their homes via the front door in the middle of the night, never to be seen again, and a grieving community tries to piece together what the hell happened. This mystery/horror hybrid tells its vanishing act through violent vignettes tracing the travails of intersecting characters including Julia Garner as the kids’ feisty teacher, Josh Brolin as a hostile father of the disappeared and Alden Ehrenreich as a hapless policeman. Each episode folds gracefully into the next, giving viewers more clues and insights with each omniscient perspective. It’s like a secret being passed around. Along with the dynamite performances by the aforementioned trio, child actor Cary Christopher and Amy Madigan as “Aunt Gladys” also get to shine in intriguing and pivotal roles. There are genuine scares, for sure, interlaced with a few grisly acts; but for the most part, suspense and invention loom large, captured in the twisty dreamscapes of Larkin Seiple’s stunning cinematography. This is one of those stories evoking heartbreak one moment and hilarity the next, a veritable progressive block party to be discovered and savored together in movie theatres. That sublime sound of satisfaction is Cregger making house calls.
Surely/Shirley Hollywood can’t be serious that the gag-a-minute spoof comedy genre is brazenly dropping trou into our collective consciousness again, and Akiva Schaffer’s 2025 legacy sequel The Naked Gun (B-) is mostly crackling, cackling kindling on the formula fire. More effective than imagined in the lead role playing against type, Liam Neeson is dreamy deadpan. He plays the son of Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen in the original film trilogy and short-lived Police Squad! TV show) who must succeed in his father’s footsteps to prevent a tech billionaire baddie played by Danny Huston from achieving mass mind control over L.A. society. The parade of sassy sight gags and plentiful plays on words play out with feckless abandon in a tidy hour and a half laugh-fest. Pamela Anderson is an absolute joy as a bombshell novelist, who gets to effectively ham it up in jazz speakeasies and an absurdist alpine adventure. Paul Walter Hauser is also funny as the straight man to the straight man as the dad jokes play out one after another. Co-screenwriters Dan Gregor and Doug Mand milk every laugh they can get out of the action and antics, with clear inspiration from the comic classics and undeniable nifty notes from goofball producer Seth MacFarlane. The film is often giddily retrograde, with knowing knock knocks centered around such novelties as TiVo devices, the Black-Eyed Peas, mobile phones, body cams and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer catalogue deep-cuts. Sometimes viewers will see the joke coming from a mile away (I’m looking at you, dropping new year’s balls), but the familiarity doesn’t make many of the proceedings any less chortle worthy. And many of the jokes do actually miss; for all the buzz about the tight running time, there’s certainly still room for pruning. But the act of laughing together in public in a movie theatre is nearly a lost ritual, and I encourage it.
Talk about a two-hander! And every other limb, for that matter! Together (B), the body horror comedy movie directed by Michael Shanks and subsequently buzzed about at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, centers on real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a fictional pair finding themselves scientifically and supernaturally fusing into one being. She’s a plucky teacher, and he’s a hapless guitarist, and moving from city life to countryside seclusion proves a prescient change of scenery for taking their relationship to the next level. In a form of magnetic attraction even Plato couldn’t have contemplated, the film depicts the sometimes scary and often funny misadventures when two become one. The movie’s production values are consistently high, even when the makeup effects and particular plot devices become the most far-fetched. The central actors are effective and endearing, and they represent a variety of dimensions about the stages of co-dependency in relationships. A few final act missteps can’t take away from the effectiveness of the generally wise and witty thesis, with an especially awkward post-coital sequence and refreshing takes on how couples drift from intimacy and intensity to sometimes blatant disregard. It’s not graphic or terrifying enough to scare off casual viewers but has enough twisty content to simultaneously appeal to hardcore horror fans. Strangely, it’s an appealing date movie with lots of personality for those willing to examine just how close they’re getting.
Third time’s the charm for the new Four, for the most part. Faithful and fastidious to its comic book origins but strangely dramatically inert, Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps (B-) does a better job than past attempts to ignite this story but remains simply a passable initial entry into Phase Six of Marvel movies. The glorious production design evokes a retro-futuristic Manhattan with such splendid detail in the film’s first act that it’s a shame there’s really no place to go from there. Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby dutifully play a married couple in a quartet of astronauts imbued with superpowers. He’s stretchy and she’s sometimes invisible, and very few interesting sight gags come from that premise. Joseph Quinn is equally unmemorable playing the Human Torch, supposedly the comic relief, but he doesn’t really blaze the screen with much of a bonfire of hilarity. This feels like the most obligatory team-up since the Gerald Ford cabinet. The heroes fight an intergalactic character who gobbles up full worlds, and yet his presence is evocative of a kaiju rampaging a city block. Still, given some of the MCU movies of late, this one has a positive message and a science-forward agenda and doesn’t careen into too much nonsense. The crafts are impressive. Graded on a curve, this is at least cogent if uninspiring.
