“Sovereign” is a movie whose politics have kind of flipped this year, which is why it’s going straight to streaming.
A guy who’s got his own interpretation of The Constitution, raising his son to fear, resist and fight back against the police and what they represent?
That’s not wingnut thought any more.
July 11.
An awards season (October release) contender, or is The Academy a tad “over” Yorgos Lanthimos?
Not likely.
“The Favourite” and “Poor Things” still have some currency when fall arrives.
Aidas Delbis and Alicia Silverstone also star in this dark comedy/environmental parable.
Will Emma Stone dance? Smart money says “Oh, hell yeah!”
A tip of the hat to Ivana Sakhno, who gives one of the more convincingly metallic turns as a woman-playing a robot in “M3GAN 2.0,” a killer robot sequel that leans even harder into well-founded AI phobia.
She is Maria in Fritz Lang’s classic “Metropolis” rendered in brutish Robert Patrick strokes in this “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” inspired thriller.
The follow-up to the surprise smash of the winter of 2022 goes for grim laughs this time out, with star Allison Williams reduced to straight man woman. Producer credit or not, she lets us know how she feels about that in every inexpressive, under-reacting moment she’s on screen. Literally everybody and everything here upstages her.
A military grade upgrade of the child-protective-robot of the first film goes rogue. Amelia, your steely, supermodelish Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android has run amok and is on the hunt for a master cloud server that will allow her control of Life on Earth.
Naturally, there’s a smirking, chip-implanting tech oligarch (Jemaine Clement) who has wired the world for his version of an AI future that Amelia is ready-made to exploint.
Only a rebooted M3GAN, still snarkily-voiced by Jenna Davis, can stop Amelia. Inventor Gemma (Williams), now a crusading, best-selling anti-AI/anti cell-phones-for-kids foster parent to Cady (Violet McGraw), kept M3GAN’s electronic brain around, but this time she’ll keep her in check by sticking her in an AI digital assistant-bot form.
But you can’t keep our avenging AI angel in “this plastic Teletubby” if you want her to stop Amelia. They’ll have to “rebuild a deranged robot in order to catch another deranged robot” if humanity is to have a chance.
M3GAN’s “You know I could never hurt you” reassurances to Cady, her insincere apologies to Gemma’s team (Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez) for trying to kill them in the first movie will have to do.
Gemma’s “virtue signalling snowflake” fellow anti-AI crusader beau (“Saturday Night Live’s” Aristotle Athari) better not get in M3GAN’s way, either.
Clement and Athari make the strongest comic impressions here, with FBI home invasion “jokes” and a cocky, stumbling, rights-violating military man (Timm Sharp) giving the film a tech fascism topicality.
Sakhno is steely-eyed menace personified. Those “Be Robert Patrick” stage directions paid off.
But with M3GAN cracking jokes, striking sassy teen poses and the like, the frights are never anything to take seriously.
Some of the jokes land. Some do not. And through it all, not a moment of rising threat level or terror registers credibly on anybody’s face. It’s as if they’re all in on the joke, with Williams merely the worst at spoiling the punchline.
Rating: PG-13, violence, profanity
Cast: Allison Williams, Jemaine Clement, Ivana Sakhno, Jen Van Epps, Violet McGraw, Aristotle Athari, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Timm Sharp and Amie Donald with the voice of Jenna Davis.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Gerald Johnstone, based on characters created by Akela Cooper and James Wan. Universal Pictures release.
Running time: 2:00
“F1” is a shiny, streamlined and perfectly aerodynamic version of an old fashioned star vehicle.
The star in this case is Brad Pitt, one of the most popular leading men of his generation. So it’s only natural he and director Joseph Kosinski chose to circle a track that Steve McQueen, James Garner and others rounded long ago. The echoes of “Grand Prix” and “LeMans” are intentional.
And Kosinski, who made sure Tom Cruise was never far from the frame in “Top Gun: Maverick,” knows a little something about star vehicles. The cars are cool and we get a bit of a sense of the engineering and strategies involved. But “F1” is more “Gran Turismo” than Ron Howard’s “Rush.” The idea here is swaggering, popcorny, crowd-pleasing fun.
Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, old school and old enough to avoid having his age ever mentioned by any track or TV coverage race announcer. He’s “the greatest who never was,” a driver of skill and the cunning that comes with years of experience. He’s also an iconoclast with a past. He wrecked once, decades ago, a crash glimpsed in the film’s opening and in flashbacks.
Now he lives in a van, drifts from track to track, circuit to circut, looking for a “seat,” a “ride.” His MO is laid out in the film’s blistering opening sequence at the 24 Hours of Daytona (the Rolex 24), a sports car endurance race like LeMans. Sonny drives the overnight laps that set up his Porsche team for victory lane the next day, when he hands the keys over to a teammate.
“Hey, you lose that lead, I’ll kill you!”
No amount of begging from the team captain (Shea Whigham) can convince competitive Sonny to come back for another season in this class. He’s off to find another race in another circuit, even off-road rallies like Dakar or the Baha 1000. And that old pal and rival (Javier Bardem) who shows up with an offer to return to the circuit that almost killed him, Formula 1, has just as hard a sell.
The Mercedes team’s about to go broke, unable to challenge Ferrari, McClaren et al. Their young, telegenic star of the driver (Damon Idris) may be popular on social media. It’s a pity he’s finishing last, when he’s finishing at all. Help us, Obi-Sonny. You’re our only hope.
The Erhen Kruger script sets up our expectations for a formulaic “mentor/protege” rivalry, with a love interest on the team (Kerry Condon plays the car-designer) and steady rise through the ranks F1 season of races. What’s fun about it is the ways it upends that formula, and how Pitt leans into the lighter side of his star appeal.
Sonny’s test drive/”audition” for a “seat” on his Apex Grand Prix team goes badly. He still gets the job. His mentoring consists of battling the kid so hard that they wreck. He can’t get the attention of the car builder with suggestions based on that cocky, 50something grin. But he does get her Irish up.
“I start listenin’ t’you when you FINISH a race!”
Pitt gives Sonny a flippancy about all of this that flies in the face of earlier treatments of this still-deadly sport. The character wears his “the greatest who never was” status, his years in the wilderness, driving taxis and gambling for a living, with an almost embarassed shrug.
Press conferences? He’s the king of smirking one-word answers to questions. And his solution to the team’s get-out-of-last-place problems are what we’d call “cheating.” “F1” has a whiff of “Talledega Nights” about it in that regard.
In Kosinski’s two and a half hour film, rival drivers (Lewis Hamilton got a producer credit) are barely glimpsed and occasionally mentioned. The focus is on the kid who has to learn patience and team building and the tricks of the track, and of the old dog teaching those new tricks.
We see shirtless Sonny’s scars from injuries, the tattoos, and the competitiveness. Sonny may affect a laid-back, devil-may-care vibe. He’s cavalier about the ways he games the rules and “Ooops” and “My bads” others off the track. But he hates losing.
The flippant banter gives this movie a jokey “Ford v. Ferrari” tone. Kosinski boils the travel and tracks down to a few tropes that capture the spectacle of Britain’s Silverstone, Mexico City’s Autódromo, the Vegas Strip course and Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi.
If you want a sense of the grandeur, tradition and deadly history of Formula 1, “Grand Prix” and “Rush” do it better.
But if you want a fun night out with a sixtysomething movie star behind the wheel, in his element and cheerfully, comically comfortable in his own long-worshipped skin, you’d be hard pressed to do better than “F1.” It takes the checkered flag among the popcorn pix of this summer.
Rating: PG-13, profanity, violent accidents, sexual situations
Cast: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, Sarah Niles, Samson Kayo, Tobias Menzies, Abdul Salis, Callie Cooke, Shea Whigham and Kerry Condon.
Credits: Directed by Joseph Kosinski, scripted by Ehren Kruger. A Warner Bros./Apple release.
Running time: 2:35
You’ve got to be a certain age to have any idea what this title is about and to remember how big a deal this early children’s TV act was.
Coming soon.
A crook who hides out at Toys R Us?
Gotta be in Charlotte.
Kirsten Dunst, Lakeith Stanfeld and Peter Dinklage are in this true story caper farce from the director of “The Place Beyond the Pines.”
Oct. 10
Here’s a sordid little teen-in-trouble tease from Spain that promises threats, sex and violence presented in the most melodramatic situations possible in assorted posh settings decorated by overdressed members of the upper class and underclass.
“Bad Influence” is about a teen ballerina who is being stalked — at home, at school and in the concert hall, and her rich father’s wildly unconventional and nonsensical solution to that.
Dad (Enrique Arce) goes to prison and wrangles early release for a troubled young man he wants to to be his daughter’s bodyguard.
Yeah, it could happen. “Troubled?” Maybe giving the kid the name “Eros” (Alberto Olmo) wasn’t the safest guarantee for an easy life.
Eros is to watch over young Reese (Eléa Rochera), and his lunging save when a stage light almost falls on her should seal that deal.
But she’s underwhelmed and he’s not all that enthusiastic. And as is the way of cute teen thrillers of this ilk, there’s a whole flamenco around the mutual attraction that gets in the way of “The Bodyguard” performing duties he is in no way qualified to carry out.
At least they can bond over a “Doctor Jones” sing-along in her daddy’s Jeep.
Reese is getting online threats and real-world suggestions of exposure to peril. Her bullying rich pretty-boy ex, Raúl (Fernando Fraga) is the leading candidate. His racist “Jesus Looked Like Me” t-shirt is our first clue.
Maybe the posh private school that Eros has to enroll in and (we assume) audit classes in French philosophy is a tell, too. The screenwriter/director names it “St. Plath.” I kid you not.
It’s never the most obvious villain, so does the Sylvia Plath reference give anything away? Might the dad be staging these threats himself in a pervy, possessive bit of acting out? Could one of Reese’s friends — voraciously bisexual Lily (Sara Ariño) — have it in for her?
Could Reese be managing these menacing messages herself? How about Eros’s orphan “family”– the overdressed/underdressed and underemployed sexpot Peyton (Mirela Balic) or on-the-make hustler Diego (Farid Bechara)? Revenge on “our annoying bosses of the future” class?
The film pays about as much attention to the mystery as it does to Reese’s supposedly promising ballet career (check out that EDITING). At least the scenery (Valencia and environs) is striking, what little we see of it.
The heat between our young Spanish Alexander Skarsgård look-alike and the Spanish daughter Gemma Arterton never knew she birthed is palpable but teased out in the most predictable ways. That coy, carnal attraction has to do the heavy lifting in a movie with limited incidents, threats and “action.”
Because the resolution and finale co-writer/director Chloé Wallace cooks up looks more Latin American Spanish than European Spanish. It’s straight out of a telenovela.
Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, nudity, smoking, profanity
Cast: Alberto Olmo, Eléa Rochera, Mirela Balic, Sara Ariño and Enrique Arce.
Credits: Directed by Chloé Wallace, scripted by Chloé Wallace and Diane Muro. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:46
Any intimate, detailed documentary about what goes on during a bullfight is going to chase away probably two thirds of the populace in this day and age. Those who avoid it have a point.
“Afternoons of Solitude,” which follows pouty and popular young bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey through fourteen corridas over three years, doesn’t pull any punches or spare us the blood. We see the jabs of the picas (lance piercings delivered on horseback) and banderillas (darts) or the stabs from the estoque (sword) and belated coup de grace from a descabello (dagger).
Only the sword is wielded by the muleta (cape) waving bullfighter. He has a whole costumed and armed team on his side as he wades through an afternoon’s fights.
A tight-jacket/tight-pants “suit of light” dandy with a sense of theater — strutting, posturing for the crowd, eyes bugging out as he regards his foes (more than one bull) for the day — he is also a man with a high tolerance for blood. Early on, we see our torero undressing after a fight, a white suit ruined by the gruesome day’s work.
But director Alberto Serra’s film (“Tardes de soledad” in Spanish) reminds us that a high tolerance for pain is also part of that deal toreadors make with the Devil. Roca Rey compulsively crosses himself at several points as he preps to go into the ring each afternoon, and with good reason. All those other figures in the bullfight’s dance of death, armed and on foot or on horseback — a bull wounded, taunted and weakened from a long duel — and we still see Roca Rey flipped and mauled. We hear of injuries that are slow to heal.
And the crowds in Spain? They know their bloodsport. If he’s not up to snuff, or fails to kill the bull with that one elegant final stab, the whistles and jeers from the arena let him know it.
No wonder Roca Rey curses them almost as much as he curses the bulls. He professes respect for the animals, but yes, he’s aware of how much his “team” protects him.
“Bull, you spared me,” he mutters at the end of one fight that’s injured him. We know better.
“You should have been carried out,” one of his in-ring banderillos says afterward (in Spanish with English subtitles). “Today, we skirted tragedy!”
Serra, who made the fictional features “Pacifiction” and “The Death of Louis XIV,” mikes up Roca Rey and follows him through the rituals of a day’s fight. We see the elaborate costuming — beginning with a see through body sock, with layers piled over it — the van ride to the venue, a rock star and his entourage of aides in and out of the ring.
And in the fight, we hear the instructions, directions and “hype” of those assisting him in his mismatched duel with a bull.
“You’ve got BALLS,” is a favorite encouragement. “Shut them UP” is shouted when they sense the crowd turning on him.
The rides to the arena are quiet and sweaty. This is deadly dangerous work, even if bullfighters don’t often die in the ring any more. The rides back to a hotel are full of reassurances, ego-stroking and the like.
“Did I overdo it?”
“You’re a beast, a cut above the rest!”
“Solitude” is shot in a tight frame, a documentary that narrows its focus, stripping much of the pageantry and at least some of the ritual of this anicent bloodsport that much of the world condemns these days. Serra dares to show us that a bull’s death after a cruel “contest” is a sad and pathetic thing. Hemingway and those still defending bullfighting can suck it with their “noble beast” and manliness of the toreros spin.
But if you’ve ever been curious, without wanting to endure a drawn-out day-long slaughter by the world’s best-dressed and best-compensated butchers, “Afternoons of Solitude” will put you in that ring with a celebrated torero. We see him practice his bloody art, sizing up the bull, always calculating the risks, pausing to pose, but also following the shouts of direction as his team sets the animal up for him to deliver a “beautiful” death.
Rating: unrated, graphic violence, animal cruelty, profanity
Cast: Andrés Roca Rey, with Manuel Lara, Francisco Manuel Durán,
Antonio Gutiérrez, Roberto Domínguez and Francisco Gómez
Credits: Scripted and directed by Alberto Serra. A Grasshopper Film release
Running time: 2:05
The horror hardcores are all in on this fan fest darling, a “double booked” mansion getaway that turns carnal, unfaithful and bloody.
Oct. 24. Mark your calendar.
If only anyone could actually, you know, RIDE in “If Only I Could Ride Again,” maybe this limp noodle of a New England horse country melodrama might have some credibility.
There’s scene after scene after scene of young women in jodhpurs on horseback, being walked around a corral or stables or wherever by their trainer.
The inane-in-the-extreme script keeps referring to “horseback riding” trophies and championships. It’s as if nobody there knows the various events of equestrian competition, much less had the budget to cast actors who could vault, compete in dressage or cross country “eventing,” much less pay for on-set consultants, safety experts and stunt doubles.
That erases most chances for drama and lowers the stakes in this downbeat, low-energy “family” movie about a college coed (Eva Igo) recovering from a riding injury, a bitter rich girl who’s dropped out of college to driver her Audi SUV home and see her protege (Alexis Arnold) take all the laurels she once enjoyed.
“I’m retired,” Bridget sneers at anyone who suggests she get back up on the horse that threw her.
The added complications are a possible love interest at the local drive in (Ethan Rhoad), prescription drug addiction (supplied by the local “candy man” (who looks like he still has his learner’s permit), a trainer (Tom Vera) with a sad shadow over his life, a new single mom (Amanda Williams Pfeiffer) with her doubts about him, the single mom’s blind son and Trouble on the Farm in the form of a shyster lawyer.
Injured Bridget has a crutch that comes and goes whenever she feels the need to declare “I can walk by myself!” Younger rider Jodie’s mom (Sheri Jacobs) has taken up with a racecar driver (Don Miller, who co-wrote the script) of some local (Vermont) repute, which upsets Jodie. Or so we’re told.
There’s little friction between the “rival” girls, who were besties and still seem that way. The “losing the farm” drama barely registers and fails to raise the stakes. There’s little warmth to the potential romances and the barest dollop of sentiment about getting the blind kid (Ashton Dunford) on a horse at the Helping Hooves equine therapy farm.
And the dialogue’s as bland as the performances.
Screenwriter Miller might be the most convincing player in the cast. He’s so “natural” that he seems more like a racer than an actor. That’s because Miller’s playing a role named for and inspired by his dead racing driver brother. Pity about his screenplay, though.
“It’s what families do” is a line several characters trot out, as this picture is tailored to find its way to some Rural TV/family friendly streaming channel.
Perhaps most of the players involved were a bit bored with the idea of making this sequel. From reading the plot descriptions, there’s little difference between 2022’s “If I Could Ride” and 2025’s “If I Could Ride Again.”
If so, their boredom’s contagious.
Rating: PG, drug abuse
Cast: Eva Igo, Tom Vera, Alexis Arnold, Amanda Williams Pfeiffer, Ethan Rhoad and Don Miller.
Credits: Directed by Nick Pinelli, scripted by Don Miller and Nick Pinelli. A Vision Films release.
Running time: 1:37
Movie Nation 