Veteran director Martin Campbell knows how to shoot and cut action, so perhaps this Jan. 3 release will grab a bit of attention.
Green, Maria Bakalova and Ruby Rose headline, with Jojo T. Gibbs, Rona-Lee Shimon and
Laëtitia Eïdo also taking care of business.
“Venom: The Last Dance” is going out in style, as this critically-dismissed Marvel movie is rolling up perhaps $14 million on its third weekend at the top of the box office heap. That would put it over $112 million, Deadline.com notes.
And that would be enough to keep Hugh Grant — THAT Hugh Grant — from unseating it in the top spot. Grant and his very smart and sinister turn in “Heretic” did $1.2 million Thursday night and outdrew “Venom” Friday, which Deadline somehow figures will spin into an $10.5 million opening for A24’s religion-ripping horror tale.
Good reviews and very good reviews won’t hurt that one, with $10.5 million seeming more like its floor than its opening weekend ceiling.
Not quite upbeat notices and indifferent reviews won’t hurt the faith-based family dramedy “Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which rushes the holiday season into theaters along with the better-reviewed indie “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” although not everybody got in the holiday spirit thanks to that diffuse and downbeat “comedy” either.
“Best Christmas Pageant,” which came to life in a ’70s novel and became a treacly feature of community theaters across the land thanks to an ’80s stage version, is on track to earn $10 million, over the Veteran’s Day weekend. That’s a very good take for a film starring Judy Greer and a bunch of kids.
“The Wild Robot” is still all alone in the major studio family-film animated releases of the fall (“Hitpig” bombed) and will pull in another $5 million or so. It’ll be over $130 million by the end of the holiday weekend, but it took seven weeks to get there — not a Dreamworks blockbuster by any measure.
“Smile 2” could actually finish ahead of it this weekend, as it is on track to pull in another $4.7 million. It’s over $60 million at this point, probably clearing close to $80 million by the end of its run.
The few theaters still showing the charming Pharell Williams animated biography-documentary “Piece by Piece” could push it over $10 million this weekend, but it looks as if it will fall just short. Fun idea, turning a music doc into a Lego animated pic. If you missed it, you’re missing out.
“Conclave” finishes sixth this weekend, pulling in another $4 million.
Sean Baker’s sex worker tricks her way to Russia tale “Anora” opens wider this weekend and cracked the top ten, clearing the $2.5 million mark.
“Here” opened meekly and is heading to a meek $2.5 million second weekend.
“We Live in Time” is adding $2.3.
And “Terrifier 3” is finally out of gas, pulling in $1.3. But it’s managed to clear $53 million and will finish its run in the $57-60 million ballpark.
The mid-fall/Halloween releases will surrender a lot of screens next weekend, when “Red One” starts the holiday season onslaught, followed by “Wicked,” “Gladiator 2” and “Moana” 2.
“Heretic” is a simple but smart thriller about faith, a horror movie of ideas that is as sinister as it is cerebral.
The writers of “A Quiet Place” and writer-directors of “65” keep our focus on two young women, Mormon missionaries in peril, and on the twisted, Satanic figure who imperils them.
Sophie Thatcher (TV’s “Yellowjackets”) and Chloe East (“The Fabelmans” and TV’s “Generation”), filmed in revealing closeups, register innocence and optimism, naivete and rising unease closing in on terror as they figure out — at different times — the depth of difficulties their last door-knock of the evening has brought them to.
And Hugh Grant, all twinkling curiosity, charm and contempt that turns towards menace, puts on a tour de force of understated villainy as that one older gentleman in the curiously shaped, bigger-on-the-inside house on the edge of town who could be their undoing. You almost forget the “forelock” years of romances like “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” This is a career-redefining post-“Paddington” turn that reminds us he was always more than big blue eyes, unruly hair and a stammer.
Sister Barnes (Thatcher) is the more experienced of the two 20ish young women on Schwinns, handing out pamphlets, approaching often curt and dismissive strangers in town in this corner of the Rockies. Sister Paxton is eager to save her first soul by sharing “all the ways God reveals his plan.”
It’s raining and getting dark when they come to Mr. Reed’s house. He’s someone who earlier expressed an interest in learning more about their faith. He charms at the door, expressing delight at their arrival. And when Sister Barnes notes that they can’t come in without a woman present, assures them his “wife” is in the kitchen, finishing up a pie.
They chat as they wait on the wife and the pie, and as the camera closes in, the supposedly unknowing and curious potential convert reveals that he already has a worn copy of The Book of Mormon, filled with notes and page-tags. And his questions become a lot more pointed than much of what the missionaries have heard about that Mormon-bashing “‘Southpark’ musical (“‘The Book of Mormon’).”
He starts with queries about one woman’s dead father and “signs” that she’s felt his presence after his death. They all have thoughts on the afterlife. And then he drops the big one.
“How do you feel about polygamy?” Their response to his “misogynistic practice” and prophet Joseph Smith’s rationale for womanizing is rote Latter Day Saints dogma about the “practicality” of it in a female-dominated (in its early years) faith.
The digging goes deeper as Mr. Reed trots out props to make his points about “iterations” of ritual and belief through the ages, which must — in his mind — point back to what could have been “the One True Faith.” The young women haven’t his years of research or experience of the world, but try to hold their own even as they concede points about this or that Mormon rationalization or reversal of practice and preaching or even that Smith himself was pretty “sketch.”
But where IS that wife? Where is that blueberry pie they’re smelling that she’s making? Why WOULD this guy have all the versions of the board game Monopoly, including the one that pre-dated it by decades and was stolen by the credited inventor, just to make his point?
Why did he make note of the fact that the “walls and ceilings have metal in them. I hope you don’t mind,” as regards the cell phones that won’t work.
One thing’s for sure, as the debate shifts to fast food, his “I’ve never had a Wendy” is a Freudian slip for the ages. The Sisters — first one, then the other — grasp just how much danger they’re in. They must hide their panic, insist again on seeing the wife and reason (in a panic) and work-the-problem their way out of this peril.
“Heretic” leans on horror and serial killer thriller conventions for its plot and rising suspense. The foreshadowing is obvious, but the ways it is deployed always surprise and chill.
Grant’s villain is deeply considered but still only vaguely defined — supernatural menace, or all-too-recognizably human monster?
The second act somewhat pointlessly shifts in point of view as we see the church Elder (Topher Grace) they speak of as “expecting us back” start to fret about their absence and the darker and darker turns in the weather. And the third act’s grim and gruesome violence and “tests” don’t entirely obscure the struggle for clarity as the writers-directors try to wrap things up in a “What it all means” moment.
But this is top drawer horror, a smart movie that dissects faith and belief and religions in search of their purpose as it trots through the tropes of all the ways the world and the creeps in it are a threat to young women, especially the religious ones.
And Grant’s outing joins the ranks of the great horror villains with an erudite and evil turn for the ages, a “Heretic” who cannot be heard or experienced without sending a chill up the spine of the faithful and the faithless alike.
Rating: R, graphic violence
Cast: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East and Topher Grace
Credits: Scripted and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. An A24 release.
Running time: 1:50
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” the latest film of the based on the early ’70s Barbara Robinson novel, comes to the screen with all the charms and shortcomings of a thousand Little Theatre stage productions over the decades.
Uplifting in the right spots, touching near the end, cute and yet cloying, maudlin and manipulative everywhere else, it punches a lot of familiar buttons when it comes to faith-based films for the holidays.
The director of “The Chosen” TV series finds some of the laughs but struggles to keep it moving at a pace that would make this story of a looming disaster comically pay off. Dallas Jenkins goes for slow and easy sentiment when a hint of knockabout farce would do the picture a world of good.
Judy Greer is well-cast as the plucky late 1970s mom who takes on a church Nativity pageant only to have the Emmanuel church annual event taken over by a gang of poor, ill-mannered child bullies.
Sure, there are a lot of moving if somewhat static parts to the pageant — children singing carols as a narrator tells the story of the birth of Jesus and other children pose as Mary, Joseph, an Angel of the Lord, shepherds, wise men, the innkeeper, and others who take up all the rooms at “the inn.” And kids are involved, with their own herding-cats challenges.
But the town of Emmanuel has been putting this show on for 75 years, so it’s become less of a challenge than a “tradition” running on auto-pilot. This pretty little girl has played Mary a couple of times, a tall boy from the church has been Joseph, and the lady running it has been on the job for decades.
An accident takes out the regular director, and under-estimated “just bring the (store bought) cookies” Grace (Greer) volunteers to tackle the gig. And when her son (Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez) blurts to a school snack-stealing bully that he can get plenty more sweets at his church’s pageant and potluck, all of a sudden Grace has six new kids not just vying for roles, but demanding them.
The Herdmans are tiny terrors, bullying hellions who are “the worst kids in the history of the world.” And when they show up, looking for sweets and looking for roles, they basically hijack the show.
But they have questions. Lots of them.
What’s a ‘play’? What’s an “‘inn?” “What’s a ‘manger?'”
Mary’s “great with child?” What’s that mean?
The sextet may be feared by all their peers, with adults labeling many a town incident “another Herdman fire.” But they don’t know this story, its religious significance or even this form of live “entertainment.”
Beatrice Schneider impresses as Imogene, the oldest Herman, the toughest and the ringleader. She insists on playing Mary, and makes the necessary threats to the town Miss Prissy, Alice (Lorelei Olivia Mote) to ensure that happens. Kynlee Heiman plays Imogene’s younger sister, an almost aboriginal fury who bites and screams and terrifies all who encounter her.
And no other kid in this town and that church can stand up to the four Herdman boys. That goes for Grace too, despite pressure from the church busybodies to ditch the Godless heathen Herdmans and do the pageant “the way we’e always done it.”
But Grace sees the children having something like a religious awakening (as if) and potentially changed by their experience learning about, playing and understanding these iconic figures from “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
The viewer can be forgiven for noting, “Lady, you’re encouraging bullying by letting bullies win,” a bone I’ve picked with every version of this I’ve seen — stage or screen. And even the best adaptations of this “changed by learning about the virgin birth” kiddy show are too sappy for anybody with a family history of diabetes.
The screenplay hits the compassionate moments tear-jerker hard, and the comic moments not nearly hard enough.
But Greer holds down the fort, and keeps the picture on message if not on task. Lauren Graham ably narrates (over-narrates, truth be told) the story as Grace’s now-adult daughter Beth, who experienced this “Christmas miracle” as an elementary schooler (played by Molly Belle-Wright).
And Pete Holmes is OK as Grace’s skeptical husband, a doubter who can’t see these unruly kids as “wise men” or Joseph or Mary or anybody else.
But even Dad has a soft spot for children whose hard upbringing is surely scarring them. And as the faithful like to say, holiday miracles come in all shapes and sizes, even if they don’t necessarily know what frankincense and myrrh are.
Rating: PG
Cast: Judy Greer, Beatrice Schneider, Pete Holmes, Molly Belle-Wright, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Kynlee Heiman and Lauren Graham.
Credits: Directed by Dallas Jenkins, scripted by Platte F. Clarke, Darin McDaniel and Ryan Swanson, based on the Barbara Robinson novel. A Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:39
Perhaps the best way to experience these two movies, back to back, maudlin to menacing, treacle to brimstone, Judy Greer to Hugh Grant.
Alice Lee and Will Brittain headline this “fractured timeline” action comedy (evident in the trailer). Nov. 29, we see if it all comes together and makes sense.
“Jumanji” and Marvel veteran Karen Gillan finally finds a star vehicle in sync with her brittle, awkwardly funny persona with “Late Bloomers,” a sentimental comedy about an aimless, guilt-stricken young woman who finally grows up when she takes on the responsibilities of a caregiver.
Something about the Scottish actress who usually plays Americans never quites makes a connection in much of her work. Maybe the American accent takes up too bandwidth to allow warm and witty to register. Bitchy? Touchy? Distracted? Sure.
But as pushing-30 Louise, a would-be singer between jobs who never got over that last breakup and avoiding “coming home” or even taking the many calls from her Dad (Kevin Nealon), Gillan shines, leading us on a journey from self-deluded to self-aware and self-confident to selfless.
Because that’s what it takes to devote yourself to elder care.
Rock bottom for Louise is drunkenly falling off a Brooklyn ledge, stalking the ex-boyfriend who won’t open the door for her. She’s 28, practically alone in the city and she’s broken her hip, a geriatric injury, nurses and her surgeon remind her.
The hostile old Polish woman (Malgorzata Zajaczkowska, of “Enemies, a Love Story” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” back in the day) who shares her hospital room is just icing on the misery cake.
Running into Antonina later during rehab doesn’t warm either of them up. But when the old woman who speaks no English can’t make her own way home, Louise takes her in for the night. She’s got an iPhone and translator app. If it ever works, it’ll be a cinch.
Louise ends up pitching-in to help out Antonina’s granddaughter Sylvia (Michelle Twarowska), who’d rather just drop the old crank in a home. Louise’s apartment-sharing landlord (Jermaine Fowler) is forcibly enlisted in this “job.” At least this gives her an excuse when she finally returns Dad’s calls.
Flashbacks relate how Louise learned to sing and play guitar from Mom (Talia Balsam). But Mom’s descended into dementia, Dad is desperate for help, or at least for Louise to come get some closure.
It’s going to take a lot of Antonina time to make the lovelorn Louise compassionate enough to mature from “I can barely take care of myself” to taking care of others.
Director Lisa Steen, screenwriter Anna Greenfield and Gillan go for “quirky” in this portrayal, and they succeed, giving us a clingy but off-putting character struggling to make bar pickups and have sex for the first time in “three years,” who transforms into somebody warm enough to put herself and her needs second — even if she’s still on crutches.
The narrative wanders a bit and that makes the character’s development and the story’s flow uneven and herky-jerky. Several characters are thrown in but left to wither in the final edit, and Louise’s relationships seem to suffer from narcissistic attention deficit disorder — hers and the screenplay’s.
But Gillan and Louise warm to the task, and even give us a little song as this sad-edged little comedy makes its way towards a not unexpected, warm and not wholly anticlimactic climax.
Rating: 16+, sex, alcohol abuse, scatological humor, profanity
Cast: Karen Gillan, Malgorzata Zajaczkowska, Jermaine Fowler, Talia Balsam and Kevin Nealon.
Credits: Directed by Lisa Steen, scripted by Anna Greenfield. A Vertical release on Amazon Prime.
Running time: 1:30
“Let’s Start a Cult” is a rude and raunchy farce that’s amusingly in step with our times even as it strains for laughs in all the most vulgar places.
It’s a star vehicle for co-writer and walking, eating, sweating and cursing sight gag Stavros Halkias of the working class comedy “Tires” on Netflix. Here, he’s a delusional, gregarious goof-off, the odd-man out in the Cosmic Dynasty death cult.
They die, and he’s excluded from their death ritual, sent on another errand that he’s too scatterbrained and distracted by his appetites to carry out.
Ben Kitnick’s film sets up the cult life, cult ethos and cult vibe with “interviews” with the seven members semi-secluded on a Midwestern farm, all followers of the redheaded messiah and “Father Shepherd” Will (co-writer Wes Haney).
He’s the one who dreamed up this ethereal afterlife destination “Jalenazano,” where “energy dolphins” and other magical creatures reside, if only he and his devotees can shed their mortal bodies, “the chrysalis from which we emerge as our true selves!”
It’s the spring of 2000, and Will has attracted a collection of self-esteem-starved souls seeking meaning. Chunky monkey Chip (Halkias) is their mouthy wildcard, a victim of his needs and impulses — he masturbates and eats blurts-out whatever on his mind at this moment.
Sharing a sacremental drink from the same cup as the cult lady with herpes sores?”Can I get maybe another cup?”
Chip is always getting sent to “The Punishment Barn” to shiver and sleep and reflect on his latest transgression. But after the cult members have talked about their faith and their dreams for that videotape Will entrusts slovenly, scatterbrained Chip to deliver than vhs to a TV newscaster who will spread their message to the world.
Chip’s junk food run distracts him from his task, and when he gets back, they’re all dead. He covers his tracks and goes home to the family gravel distribution business (Ethan Suplee plays his sneering, abusive brother). But when the news finally gets out that the cult has killed itself, it turns out that Will wasn’t among the dead. He’s wanted.
Chip, forgetting all the impulses that didn’t pay off — karate training in Japan when sumo was his best bet — and life paths he never followed through on, vows to track the con-man/murderer down. But when he finds Will disguised as the world’s worst kid’s party clown, “justice” and “revenge” are forgotten.
Let’s start another cult, “do it RIGHT this time,” with Chip as “co-leader.” All they need are the right sort of lost, dorky dead-enders and they’ll be ready for “transcendence” all over again.
Katy Fullan plays a volatile, self-esteem-starved young woman raging at the judge who took away the child she wasn’t fit to raise. And Eric Rahill is just the guy they’re looking for among all the recruits strolling out of the Armed Forces Recruitment office. “Strong?” No. “Focused?” No. Tyler looks rejected and dejected, even though he showed up wearing storebought Army combat fatigues.
“They say dress for the job you want!”
This motley crew makes its away cross country, stealing, adding to their ranks and hiding their true goal — this “family” is a cult, and this isn’t our first — from the new acolytes.
The gags are profane and slapshticky, with Halkias looking for laughs in the simple act of a rotund slob running. The sinister subtext is kept on simmer until it pops back up, and a retired lady wrestler (Sarafina Vecchio) is introduced for some third act lowdown and dirty chuckles.
But the big laughs aren’t here and a dirty, crude collection of gross jokes and body-shaming sight gags can only get you so far.
Any indie comedy that achieves “kind of watchable” is a win. But “Let’s Start a Cult” has “Dumb and Dumber,” “Billy Madison” ambitions and never comes close to achieving them.
Rating: unrated, mass suicide, sex, nudity, profanity
Cast: Stavros Halkias, Wes Haney, Katy Fullan, Eric Rahill, Sarafina Vecchio and Ethan Suplee
Credits: Directed by Ben Kitnick, scripted by Wes Haney, Ben Kitnick and Stavros Halkias. A Dark Sky release.
Running time: 1:31
“The Glassworker” is a steampunk fantasy romance in the anime style. Its novelty is that it’s the first Pakistani animated film of this type, and is Pakistan’s submission to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as a contender for a Best International Feature nomination.
There’s a long tradition of animated film and TV coming out of the Islamic world, but the most famous animated film in that setting was a Franco-US co-production, “Persepolis,” some years back.
Director Usman Riaz and screenwriter Moya O’Shea created a story that deals allegorically with Pakistan’s long history of conflicts, and do it in a steampunk fable with exotic airships, heroic early 20th century soldiers on foot and horseback and something no Pakistani town can exist without — a local djinn.
The story is about an apprentice glassblower who matures into an artist in glass, loving an army officer’s daughter from childhood onward. Its message is “Artists must create” and that there’s little room for nationalism or militarism in that mindset.
That’s just one of the obstacles that stand in the way of Vincent’s love for Alliz. He’s a fifth generation glassblower at Oliver Glassworks, the family firm. He meets Alliz at about age 11, when he is still too young to have blown his own glass but she is already a child prodigy on the violin.
He breaks his father Tomas’s edict about using the kiln without him around. But as Dad’s kept him out of school because “what you NEED to learn about is making glass,” maybe the old man will cut him some slack.
The story of Alliz and Vincent is told in flashback. He’s a famous artist now opening an exhibition at the Waterfront Town version of the Crystal Palance. She’s been out of his life for years, but she’s written him a letter.
In their youth, the clicked and clashed. She’s the daughter of Col. Amano. His father’s militantly anti-war and anti-military. She is an accomplished player when he meets her. But she just “interprets” others’ music. When he’s old enough and making his own art glass pieces, he insults her by saying “Artists CREATE.” They don’t just perform others’ work.
As they get older, there’s a love triangle as she is pursued by Malik, her classmate and now soldier under her father. Circumstances keep Vincent from being there for Alliz, and from telling her how he really feels.
The romance is blandly pro forma, even if the animation — under-animated in the anme style — is impressive.
There’s a lot of footage of glass blowing, discussion of “the world’s best sand” for making glass and the like. The disapproving parents element is played-up, then abruptly-dropped, at least in one case.
The design is vintage steam punk — baroque zeppelins powered by steam, sleekly modern pusher style airplanes, but people getting about on foot or on horseback when they’re not flying.
The street signs and letters are in English, but the film’s original soundtrack is acted-out in Urdu (or dubbed into English), as if “The Glassbower” was always intended for export.
As a first effort from a feature film animation start-up, it’s not in the same league with Studio Ghibli anime steampunk like “Howl’s Moviing Castle.” But it’s not bad even if the story is seriously unchallenging. Is it good enough to break through in the Best Animated Feature category? Probably not, not with slicker Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks fare as its competition.
But “The Glassworker” is well-crafted proof that even in the Middle East, the animation revolution will be televised, and shown in cinemas.
Rating: Unrated, violence
Cast: The voices of Khaled Anam, Mooroo, Mariam Paracha, Ameed Riaz, Mahum Moazzam, Aysha Sheikh, Dino Ali and Faiza Kazi in the Urdu version,
Anjli Mohindra, Anjli Mohindra, Sacha Dhawan,
Tony Jayawardena and Mina Anwar in the English language version.
Credits: Directed by Usman Riaz, scripted by Moya O’Shea. A Mano Studios?Charade release.
Running time: 1:38
Richard Dreyfuss, Tia Carrere and Rob Corddry are also in the cast of this Brando-impersonation comedy, with Zane channeling Mr. Method on the set, in chat shows and with a builder (Heder) he wants to fulfill his vision of a compound — or hotel and house — on his own Tahitian island.
The impersonation comes and goes in effectiveness in this trailer.
It is really coming out at the end of the month? From an unheralded distributor?
Movie Nation 