Super cool character actress Judy Greer (“The Descendants”) steps behind the camera for this school murder mystery comedy starring Jennifer Garner, Common, Keanu Reeves, John Cho and newly minted Oscar winner Allison Janney, Katie Holmes and Rob riggle among others.
They’re dumping it in late August. Monumental let-down, at least in terms of release date. Could be funny.
It’s a common failing of films adapted from beloved books. The fervent desire to be “faithful” to the work leads to fear that you’ll leave something important out.
The resulting film feels truncated, abridged. Time simply runs out.
That’s the feeling one gets from “Suite Francaise,” an all-star World War II in occupied France film based on a novel Irène Némirovsky wrote early the war, hid away and never published during her lifetime. She was Jewish and died in a concentration camp.
Do you have the gall to trim it for time, edit it down? Neither did the folks filming it. That, and the film’s suppressed, underplayed romance hamper what could have been an awards contender back in 2015, rendering it chillier than it might have been.
Michelle Williams is our heroine, Lucille, though she hardly feels that way. She married into money and comfort, even though the invasion of France in 1940 means her husband is away, fighting. Living with her imperious, greedy mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas, perfect) is the cost of this security.
France falls, and suddenly Madame Angellier‘s trips to various properties, squeezing rent out of tenant farmers, seems trivial. But with new masters come a new angle to the status quo. Some will do well, some will have food and fuel to hoard and some will starve.
And old scores will be settled by denunciation, anonymous letters to the German authorities who occupy the little town of Bussy.
As Lucille’s earthy, farm wife neighbor Madeleine (Ruth Wilson, dazzling as always) says, “You want to know what people are truly made of, start a war.”
An officer is billeted in the Angellier’s chateau. Lt. Bruno von Falk is handsome, and in a town with no able-bodied young men left, this sudden influx of blond Aryans who like the wash up, shirtless, at the town fountain or group skinny dip in the nearby ponds, are a temptation.
As we know Margot Robbie (in curls) plays one of the overripe farmgirls, we can guess one woman who will be tempted. As Matthias Schoenaerts plays Lt. von Falk, we know Lucille will be another.
The boorish, plundering Huns (Tom Schilling plays another Lieutenant, more standard-issue sadist) leave the townspeople afraid and appalled. Bruno, who asks for access to the family piano because it turns out he’s a composer, is very quick to distance himself from his compatriots.
“I have nothing in common with these people.”
The story has many melodramatic intrigues, the ways the town judges Lucille for sleeping with the enemy, the ways she manipulates that relationship to be of service to her fellow townspeople. Sam Riley, for instance, plays Madeleine’s defiant, crippled farmer husband, a communist who rubs the Nazis and the upper class folk in town the wrong way and is sure to need protection, over and over again. That material works as well as it usually does in a convincing WWII drama.
But the central romance earns short shrift, with all these characters to service and all those story lines to get in.
It doesn’t help that Williams’ Lucille doesn’t give herself over to the passion and never quite sells us this “relationship.” Schoenaerts broods over just what he might be putting on the line, but Williams is so cool that we don’t buy into the risks taken.
This disconnect is most obvious in Williams’ scenes with Wilson, of TV’s “The Affair” and such other films as “Dark River.” Williams narrates and ruminates, Wilson will break your damned heart in just a single scene.
And you sure as shooting would know if Wilson was playing a woman headstrong enough to rebel against the mother-in-law, and against her neighbors and countrymen because of the fatal attraction of a brutally handsome but tender man.
The smothered affair and the abrupt nature of the climax don’t so much ruin “Suite Francaise” as make it far less than it could have been. It’s a sturdy period piece that should have set off sparks, instead.
MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, sex, nudity
Cast: Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Kristin Scott Thomas, Margot Robbie, Tom Schilling
Credits:Directed by Saul Dibb, script by Saul Dibb and Matt Charman, based on the Irène Némirovsky novel. A Weinstein Co. release.
Running time: 1:47
Sometimes, even your most attentive parenting isn’t enough. “Beautiful Boy” is based on David Sheff’s memoir about “losing” his son to addiction, and trying to find him and get him back. As the memoir was co-written by that son, the story isn’t so much about the suspense of what will happen to the kid (Timothee Chalamet of “Call Me By Your Name”) as what the parents (Steve Carell and Maura Tierney) and kid put each other through on this nightmarish journey. Amy Ryan also This one’s due out in October.
“Wild Oats” begins with a funeral.
“So brave…”He’s in a better place.” “This is the nicest pot-luck wake I’ve ever been to.” “I’m sorry for your loss. And I just LOVE your house.”
Eva (Shirley MacLaine) is burying her husband, Maddie (Jessica Lange) is the one falling to pieces.
Not about Frank, her friend’s dead husband, but her own lesser half who is having an affair at the office.
“Who brings a secretary to the funeral?”
Demi Moore’s the hysterical daughter — “You have NO one, now! Where are you going to live? Without DADDY?” What she means is, “When can we see the house?”
Hysterical tears, insults, peals of laughter and…no, that life insurance policy of Frank’s won’t last long. And a lady can’t dine out on “You were the best teacher I’ve ever had,” even in this small town.
As Maddie’s husband (Colin Walker) just “packed up his clothes and moved in with Clarissa’s 25 year old ass,” we’re presented with two retiring “best friends for 40 years” (Oscar winners) with a lot of grief and time on their hands, time to get into mischief.
Well, not so much time. And maybe the life insurance company made…a mistake?
“Wild Oats” is a bittersweet better-to-burn-the-candle-late-than-never comedy waddling around on the flimsiest, corniest bones. Director Andy Tennant (“Hitch,” “Sweet Home Alabama”) likes comedy’s low-hanging fruit. And he’s not shy about taking forever to get is movies started. Even short ones like “Oats.”
The ladies take off to the Canary Islands, with an aged insurance investigator (Howard Hesseman) who will be the fall guy for the “mistake” if he doesn’t catch them before they have too much fun, on their tails.
Along the way, a doddering, forgetful old charmer or con artist or nut (“He’s demented, honey.”) played by Billy Connolly shows up. And the “adventure” begins.
Gambling, torrid “Have you ever seen the movie ‘The Graduate?'” hook-ups, “let yourself go” all while the long arms of Big Insurance reach out to spoil all the fun. That’s the set up.
But Tennant can’t wait to get at that, move past it and get on to the far less funny and less promising “twists” that follow.
Lange does the high-mileage bipolar vamp thing well, lurching from admiring herself in the mirror to weeping at her lot. MacLaine plays the pedantic teacher here, correcting grammar, geography and history, when the need arises.
Hesseman manages befuddled “villain” with ease.
But the laughs in this insomnia cure come in the first act, almost all of them at the funeral. Once the machinations of a tedious, trite and formulaic script take hold, the novelty of hearing lionized actresses curse (demurely) wears off, so do the charms of “Wild Oats.”
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content
Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Jessica Lange, Billy Connolly, Howard Hesseman, Demi Moore
Credits:Directed by Andy Tennant, script by Claudia Meyers, Gary Kanew. A Weinstein Co. release.
Running time: 1:25
She manages one of those “sports” bars whose real selling point is what the too-willing-to-be-objectified waitresses wear. And being a woman of optimism, faith and a sense of sisterhood, that’s not easy.
Regina Hall stars in “Support the Girls,” a comedy about looking beyond the bums and tight, tied-and-the waist low-cut T-shirts and doing the psychological math the employees do. And it’s about one long, bad day as the poorly-paid manager walking the tightrope between accepting certain strip club norms being shoved into a “mainstream” restaurant, trying to look out for somebody’s daughter, girlfriend or wife as the occasional (more than occasional) creep crosses the line in such an establishment.
Good to see Regina Hall in this Mother Superior role, riding herd on Brooklyn Decker, Haley Lu Richardson and assorted other “Coyote Ugly” candidates. With James Le Gross and comic Lea DeLaria along for the ride. August 24 at a theater near you.
Cute and cuddly as a Shaq Bear, and about as competitive as the past couple of NBA seasons have been, “Uncle Drew” is a kid-friendly b-ball fantasy, “Space Jam” without the space or the Looney Tunes.
It’s a feature-length comedy built around those Kyrie Irving-in-old-man-disguise Pepsi commercials from a while back, basically a film of him and a bunch of NBA retirees in old-age makeup, hustling “Young Bloods” at New York street ball.
But it hangs on the comic straight-man stylings of Lil Rel Howery, “coach” of this geezer hoops team. And Lil Rel, ridiculed as “Hobbit” and “Tiny Tim” by one and all, is basically Kevin Hart lite (only plump), Cedric the Rarely Entertaining.
Howery plays Dax, a Footlocker salesman whose hoop dreams ended in middle school, a game-winning shot blocked by is lifelong nemesis (Nick Kroll). Now he’s gambled everything he has on team he’s pulled together for the world famous $100,000 Rucker Playground outdoor tourney in New York, only to have Mookie, “the ghost of white boy past” show up and steal that from him, too.
Mookie even steals his gold-digging girl, Jess (Tiffany Haddish, of course).
Now, Dax’s last hope may involve listening to the geezers in the barbershop (J.B. Smoove and Mike Epps). He needs to track down the man of myth, the baller of legend, Uncle Drew (Irving). He had mad game back in the ’60s, but dissension broke up his crew back then. Can he and his 70something teammates still play?
Only a road trip in Drew’s 1970s vintage Love Wagon (van) to reassemble that team will tell.
The Big Man (Shaquille O’Neal) is running a Deep South martial arts dojo and looks “like Wolverine’s granddad.”
“Pass the ball, Kobe.”
“That sucker punch is the only ‘free throw’ you ever made.”
Shooting guard “Lights” (Reggie Miller) is blind.
“Legally? Or actually?”
Boots (Nate Robinson) is catatonic and in a wheelchair, until the ball is passed his way. And Preacher (Chris Webber) is serving his flock in “Chocolate City” (D.C.) and about to dunk — literally — a baby he is christening when we meet him. His wife (Lisa Leslie of the WNBA) doesn’t approve and chases the van all up and down the Eastern seaboard to rein Preacher in.
We’re set up for a “Blue Brothers” style odyssey, with every player getting the chance to show what they can do, off the court, on the court and on the dance floor. The Old School dance-off is a hoot, but the many, many dead spots deflate that idea, and the endless short guy/old guy/trash talk-pep talks don’t compensate for wit or pace, all this stuff about “playing the game the way it was meant to be played,” and the only shot you never miss is the one you never take, “mistake that defines your life” lessons.
Believe it or not, they lean hard on the same mantra “Tag” did — “You don’t stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing.”
Erica Ash plays the doting granddaughter/Dax love interest, ESPN takes a co-starring role as this tale is set up by a “30 for 30” documentary and the network’s last “star” pops up, here and there.
And we all wait and wait and josh around with prostate jokes and heart-attacks until “the big game.” If it wasn’t for Webber, given the funniest part to play (over the top pastor) and playing it to the hilt, the dead spots and blase leading man would dull this to the point of distraction.
Howery is funniest in the outtakes over the closing credits, breaking up at what everybody else is doing.
But if nothing else, Irving & Co., with some sympathetic filming and editing, make a great case that basketball, not soccer, can be the world’s “beautiful game,” even if you can’t really play at this level past, oh, 38.
MPAA Rating:PG-13 for suggestive material, language and brief nudity
Cast: Kyrie Irving, Lil Rel Howery, Shaquille O’Neal, Lisa Leslie, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Erica Ash, Nate Robinson, Tiffany Haddish, Nick Kroll
Credits:Directed by Charles Stone III, script by Jay Longino. A Summit release.
Running time: 1:43
Here’s a little homework, all the Pepsi commercials that feature a certain age-disguised NBA star owning lesser mortals on the playground b-ball courts of America.
Let’s keep expectations for this low, and hope for the best. When the most experienced jock “actor” on board is Shaq, that’s the safe way to approach “Uncle Drew.”
I mean, sooner rather than later, Tiffany Haddish is going to press that “OVER-exposed” button too hard, and it’ll be time’s up. Not yet, but you can see it coming.
The TV spots for Pepsi were a hoot, so fingers crossed.
John Travolta began his latest “comeback” with TV’s “American Crime Story,” playing the canny, dapper, eventually out-of-the-loop defense attorney Robert Shapiro in the O.J. Simpson trial. He was too tall for the part, but he brought pride, vanity and vulnerability to Shapiro and won kudos for doing it.
The best one can say for his newest attempt at returning to relevance, “Gotti,” which staggered onto the big screen this month after months of delays, distributors chickening out, etc., is that he should have stuck to TV. The script isn’t great, the production values New York seamy and there are a couple of supporting players who act well enough to belong here. But Travolta delivers what there is to deliver. The tone, direction and crack-addict editing all let him down.
Seriously, if you didn’t live through this “Teflon Don” era in New York crime and crime headlines, keeping track of the flaccid, choppy and anecdotal flow of the story is nigh on impossible.
You might remember “The Chin,” and “The Bull” and “Gaspipe” and all the Gambinos, Rosellis, Bilottis, DiCiccos, Ruggieros, Castellanos, Cassos and Boriellos involved in one of the noisiest and bloodiests eras in “La Cosa Nostra” history. But chances are, you don’t, no matter how many headlines you read or how many vowels are in your last name.
Kevin Connolly, who finished “Entourage” with the thought, “I want to direct,” finds this feature way beyond his grasp, creating a muddled movie that cannot find the balance between lionizing Gotti as a “Robin Hood,” a man of honor and fierce family devotion, recognizing that whatever New Yorkers chose to see in him, and the brutally simple fact that he was a murderous, overdressed psychopath, a well-dressed mug and a thug.
The first mistake is right before the opening credits, having Travolta, in character and defiant, address the camera directly — “This life ends one of two ways, dead or in prison. I did both!”
The second mistake is those credits, a montage of the real John Gotti’s many headlines, court appearances and smiling TV “perp walks” during his years running the Gambino Crime Family, and facing the justice system for doing it. Travolta looks a bit like him, but this cheapskate blunder takes you right out of the movie.
It’s a tale told in a disorganized, illogical narrated flashback, where the aged inmate Gotti tries one last time to impart “the life,” its code and “manhood” to his son (Spencer Rocco Lofranco, not really living up to his “big break).
John Jr. is thinking of copping a plea. So the dying Don tells him how he became a “made man,”about men he killed, women he threatened. He became “an earner,” the highest praise for the “soldiers” of the pyramid scheme that is mob management. He figured things out.
“Never do anyone a small injury,” he counsels. Don’t trust anything you hear from “New York’s Finest.” The cops? They “serve two masters,” and sometimes, that second master is a rival mob. And lastly, “I don’t trust any man who never did time.”
Stacy Keach deftly plays Gambino family underboss Neil Dellacroce, the mobster who knew his place, let the family pass to weaker, less deserving leadership than him and didn’t create a fuss.
“The boss is the boss is the boss,” he says. “That’s La Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”).”
Gotti wasn’t hearing it. In the tradition of a thousand mob movies before this one, younger John angles his way to power, and when the closing circle of prosecution and exposure forces his hand, he takes action — bloodily and ruthlessly.
Connolly and the screenwriters get lost in red-letter dates, this “hit,” that “meeting,” and the Great Ceremonies (a wedding, a “made man” takes his oath) of “the life.”
And they wallow in the coarse, crude and ugly vernacular of these creeps, the murderous threats that pepper “loving” conversations with the wife (Kelly Preston, Mrs. Travolta), the endless F-bombs, the colorful “Lemme AX you this” and “I made youse a tuna sandwich for the road!”
The man loved his wife, loved his kids, loved to gamble and never forgot an offense. He was “Twenty-four hours, seven days a week STREET,” and proud of it. Worth celebrating? Meh.
It’s a movie of impressionist sketches of Gotti, always dressed in Travolta’s permanent scowl. That’s how this vexing picture works best, as little impressions here and there, the fixed image (from police surveillance footage, immortalized in scores of movies and “The Sopranos”) of a bunch of paunchy, homely middle-aged tough guys, standing around some dumpy storefront, restaurant or “social club” entrance, smoking and making veiled threats, the endless back-stabbing, the liberal application of angry Italian, like it’s a code nobody else knows.
“Gotti” doesn’t really have a point, but there is the suggestion that if he was lionized locally, it wasn’t for the occasional “lemme take care of that” favors — a boxing gym’s rent “fixed” here, neighborhood fireworks sponsored in defiance of police there. The NYPD and local prosecutors, a lot of Italians among them as well (including Rudolph William Louis Giuliani) were in their post-“Serpico” funk, infamous for corruption, doing the mob’s bidding and not worthy of unearned respect. No wonder people mobbed Gotti’s trials and tried to riot and free him when he was finally convicted. He came off as “a stand-up guy,” by comparison.
It’s a bad movie, but it has hints of the simplest failing of a lot of movies made by folks who come from long-form TV. It’s episodic to a fault, with no episodes fleshed out and developed, characters played by actors at least as interesting as Chris Mulkey (as underboss Frank DeCicco) and not the generic goombahs rounded up here.
If they’d sold this to cable — and this film sets the World Record for credited producers, at least ONE of whom should know somebody in TV and made the suggestion — it might have worked, another “American Crime Story,” with a lot fewer F-bombs.
It’s just a mess as is, and the only thing we can be sure it will accomplish is killing off MoviePass, a foolish heavy investor in it, and giving Kevin Connolly’s directing career the old Italian Rope Trick. As in, “Fuggedaboutit.”
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and pervasive language
Cast: John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Stacy Keach, Spencer Rocco Lofranco
Credits:Directed by Kevin Connolly, script by Lem Dobbs (screenplay), Leo Rossi. A Vertical release.
Running time: 1:44
“To Each, Her Own” is a French romantic comedy about a long-together look-alike lesbian couple, one of whom still hasn’t come out to her observant Jewish family.
Simone (Sarah Stern) may celebrate her anniversary with Claire (Julia Piaton) at a lively, gay-friendly party with all her friends. But her giddy, in-the-moment promise to “finally come out” to her folks is quickly abandoned when she heads to home for the High Holidays dinner with her family.
It’s bad enough that she’s non-observant.
“You think the Nazis asked if you were a practicing Jew?” her mom (Catherine Jacob) bellows, before making a racist crack about the maid. “If you’re going to die for being a Jew, you might as well be a Jew!”
She’s already got a gay brother, and that leads to “what the Torah allows” debates at the dinner table. Her boorish other brother (Arié Elmaleh) is about to marry, and nobody can understand why Simone can’t find someone. He offers to set her up with somebody from work, “They’re all great Jews with good jobs.”
But Claire is who she’s bringing to the wedding, she declares. And then she stammers (the film is in French, with English subtitles), “She’s my, my my…best friend!”
The infuriating David proceeds to set her up via the obnoxious Jewish dating site he manages. That’s a quaint gag for a gay romantic comedy in 2018, but some things move more slowly in the Old World. And the movie has a lot of that — quaint.
Simone talks Geraldine, a co-worker, into accepting in her stead. Again, cute and unrealistic — quaint. A few words of advice about ordering kosher (kosher-ish) and topics to avoid at dinner, and she’s set.
If only Geraldine (Clémentine Poidatz), whom we’ve established is a food sensualist, didn’t forget those instructions the moment she sits down to eat. If only she and the near-Orthodox Eric (Stéphane Debac) hadn’t hit it off — big time.
“He has a JAG!”
Simone has also set off sparks with her favorite hunky Senegalese chef (Jean-Christophe Folly), whom she hasn’t come out to either. All this not-coming-out-to-people is creating a mess, and confusing sexual attractions for Simone.
Maybe impulsively proposing to Claire wasn’t the right move.
“He’s a guy! It doesn’t count.”
The “closet het” (heterosexual) accusations fly and it all comes apart. How WILL Simone get it all back together?
“To Each, Her Own” traffics in stereotypes — treading lightly here, stomping through them in Army boots there.
Simone interacts with three tribes as she seeks her answers. Her lesbian tribe is outraged. Wali, the Senegalese chef, lets her into his community of ex-pats, Senegalese pals who reject going to this or that club because it only has Senegalese women in it. Muslims aren’t crazy about Jews. If they find out….
And Simone’s Jewish family/tribe is sure to the last to know about her sexuality, as if she’s got a firm grip on it herself.
One thing all these tribes seem to have in common, a form of “arranged marriage” hangs over members, expectations.
Confusion reigns and misunderstandings abound as Simone’s on récolte ce qu’on a semé, or as we say in the States, “chickens come home to roost.”
Homophobic white working class men, black women who bark at how white women and black men “never work out,” food-obsessed females moan in ecstasy over sensual meals, lesbian couples who match their hair color, racist bank managers sneer at “Africans,” clannish racist Jews whip out the Holocaust card at the beginning of every argument, clannish African Muslims eschew pork, lust after white French women and recoil at Jews, and composting big city lesbians look on any coupling outside their community as a personal, sexual and political betrayal.
Those are all stereotypes and cliches, kids. Let’s not even get into the comical foreplay practices of the gay brother (Lionel Lingelser) whom Simone needs to comfort her.
Director Myriam Aziza’s film scores points with its funny family angst, amusing generational differences within the gay community (talk of marriage, settling down, babies, which older lesbians see as “boring” and “straight” and selling out).
The title “To Each, Her Own” points of a relaxing of rigid “norms” — based on religion, prejudice, stereotypes and cliches. But Aziza is too busy recycling stereotypes, complicating, recomplicating and building toward a massive toppling of the tower of quaint little lies to really get around to that.
You just know somebody’s going to have a heart attack when the truth — or a version of the truth — comes out. Will it be because she’s with a black guy, or she’s with a gay woman, or that neither of them is Jewish?
The performances are perfectly serviceable, but building this thing around a passive, pathological liar, a literal “love the one you’re with” butterfly, might be the most quaint thing about it. It’s more maddening than “motivated,” more eye-rolling than funny.
MPAA Rating: TV-MA, sexuality
Cast: Sarah Stern, Catherine Jacob, Jean-Christophe Folly, Julia Piaton
Credits: Written and directed by Myriam Aziza. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:35
As bubbly-gummy and forgettable as a Katy Perry pop confection, and just as forgettable, “SPF-18” is one of those high-gloss “When you grow up in L.A.” summer teen comedies that bear about as much resemblance to real life as oh, “Grease.”
Beautiful young people, perfectly coiffed, not famous yet, pining over one another, idling away the days in glittering wardrobe changes in between strolls on the beach at Malibu and glimpses of their away-from-LA college futures, and prom night virginity loss
“Why does my first time have to be on prom, anyway?”
Penny (Carson Meyer) is the well-heeled daughter of a “kind of famous” actress. That would be soap actress Linda Cooper (Molly Ringwald), whose “raging self-absorption” comes with the job. Vampy, over-sexed cousin Camilla (Bianca A. Santos) is Penny’s BFF, and her guide to the whole losing your virginity thing.
“So, you do a lot of rolling around?”
Penny’s boyfriend is hunky Johnny (Noah Centineo) who lost his dad in a surfing accident, drives his dad’s motorcycle and has been invited to house-sit his Malibu mansion by dad’s surfing pal Keanu Reeves. Not if Mom (Rosanna Arquette) has anything to say about it. She doesn’t.
They’re what passes for working class out there.
“Somebody call a doctor? Cuz this house is SICK!”
Ash (Jackson Baker) is an aspiring singer-songwriter from Nashville. He shows up to skinny dip in the surf behind Keanu’s house. And camp and play the sax in his tent.
“Where did YOU come from?”
Camilla’s little affluent LA-isms about “state property” and the poor but pretty (and thus entitled, like her), “lucid dreaming” and the “awareness” she substitutes for religion (Ash is Christian) have a hint of vapid Brett Easton Ellis about them. As does the whole air of aspirational affluence and beautiful young people spending money. Ellis is pals with the “director.”
“Your dad taught me that surfing’s like making love. Feels good no matter how you do it.”
Goldie Hawn narrates the damned thing, incessantly. Maybe she’s here to speed things along, “Gold-spain” the simpler-than-simplistic script to the target audience and add gravitas. “SPF” is 75 minute movie that grinds its gears, scene after scene after scene.
Everybody’s just colorless and bland and “nice.” Conflict? Dispensed with entirely, even a potential love triangle is wiped away in some irrational fear of “drama.”
The acting is pretty bad across the board, though Ms. Meyer stands out with her bloodless line readings underneath voluminous hair — “My God, are you bleeding?”
There are cameos from Keanu and “Was that Pamela Anderson?” “Welcome to Malibu!”
And I dare not quote any more dialogue from this lest my computer explode in protest.
Lots of swimsuit scenes, montages set to “Video Kill the Radio Star,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Pop Goes the World,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” and “Magic” by the Cars.
With the cameos (Ringwald and Arquette included), lush locations and music clearance fees he got his backers to shell out for, LA painter and Ellis pal turned director/co-writer (LOL) Alex Israel plainly has more access to money than talent.
MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sexual material, nudity, language and some drug references
Cast: Carson Meyer, Noah Centineo, Bianca A. Santos, Jackson White, Sean Russell Herman, Molly Ringwald, Rosanna Arquette, narrated by Goldie Hawn
Credits:Directed by Alex Israel, script by Michael Berk. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:15
Movie Nation 