Movie Nation

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

There’s aren’t a lot of stars from Golden Age Hollywood that I regard as “can’t miss.” It’s basically a list that starts and ends with Dick Powell.

Even Bogart had a misfire or two. John Wayne was a lumbering lump out of the saddle. Bette Davis, Crawford, Cooper, Grant, Stanwyck, all had their programmers and contractual obligation projects.

But Powell gave fair value every time out. If the writing was even half-decent, he’d give you crackling wisecracks and tough-guy talk in that William Powell meets Bogart persona he carved out in film noir.

“Johnny O’Clock” may not have the twistiest or most intricate plot of Peak Powell pictures like “Murder, My Sweet,” “Pitfall” or “Cry Danger.” But with Robert “All the King’s Men/The Hustler” Rossen’s script and Powell’s way with a line, this down-and-dirty double-cross thriller just sings.

“In return for certain information,” a cop teases…

“You’ll do what?”

“I’ll give you a break.”

“My arms or my legs?”

“Koch,” the inspector is called.

“How’d you spell it? ‘C-O-P?'”

Powell plays the title character, one of many aliases this big city casino manager has used since the war. But he’s got a dirty, greedy cop (Jim Bannon) elbowing and threatening to take over his half of the business he runs with the mob boss (Thomas Gomez) Marschettis.

The boss’s bomshell wife (Ellen Drew, not subtle and good at it) never got over Johnny. His hat check girl (Nina Foch) is mixed up with the crooked detective Blayden. People are going to die. People are going to disappear. And the inspector on the case isn’t the only one giving Johnny the stink eye over all of this.

That’s the perfect time for the hat check girl’s chorine sister (Evelyn Keyes) to show up, rattled and grief stricken.

“What do I do now, Johnny?”

“Dry your eyes and blow your nose — in the order named.”

Powell doesn’t get all the good lines. But the former musical comedy star knew how to make them pop, how to make the underworld argot sound natural, no matter how polished the tough guy in the tux might seem.

Lee J. Cobb wasn’t born with a stogie sticking out of his mug, but nobody was more at home with one, a fedora and a badge. He leans back into his role as Koch. He knows he’s here to look tough, ask questions and absorb Johnny’s zingers.

“You mind if I have a laugh in your face?”

Keyes, of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” makes the “love interest” a cynical, worldly but instantly love-struck foil.

Gomez oozes menace, as does John Kellogg as Johnny’s ex-con bodyguard/assistant. Look for future leading man Jeff Chandler in a bit part, cracking a joke at the poker table after the players hear a fusillade of gunfire.

“Somebody’s got a nasty cough.”

It’s a bit too slick to be one of the great noirs. The corruption is superficial, not something you feel and smell in the shadows. The “set-up” is a tad too obvious.

But Rossen’s plotting and dialogue keeps the picture moving, for the most part. A montage of close-ups of card shuffling and chips stacking at the casino has become a favorite cinematic shortcut for immersing us in gambling without showing any gambling to speak of.

And Powell delivers, a leading man who’d never steer you wrong, never let you underestimate him and never blow a punch line. Ever. I laughed and laughed at his comebacks.

The chorine wants the piano player to stop playing depressing music? A simple “Knock it off” would never do for Dick Powell.

“You, with the hands. Go. Home.”

Rating: TV-PG, violence

Cast: Dick Powell, Evelyn Keyes, Ellen Drew, Lee J. Cobb, Nina Foch, John Kellogg, Jim Bannon, Jeff Chandler and Thomas Gomez.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Robert Rossen. A Columbia Pictures release on Tubi, Amazon, other streamers

Running time: 1:37

I had not posted, to my knowledge, a single trailer from the latest “Jurassic” installment. I can’t sit in a theater watching Scarlett Johansson try to make it real, make it interesting, make it anything other than the empty-headed crap it’s almost certain to be.

But this? This looks cute, if kind of inconsequential. And challenging. She’s got to play a gay Royal Navy sibling to Sienna Miller and Emily Beechum, and partner to Freida Pinto (if I’m reading this trailer right).

Kristin Scott-Thomas directs and co-stars and has a little “Four Weddings” reunion with James Fleet in this “Wedding” cake.

Hope this gets wider distribution than Vertical normally manages. August 8 we’ll find out.

This August 6 looks sweet and Angel Studios wholesome.

“Semi-Soeter” is a broad, low-hanging fruit “Who has time for a baby?” comedy from South Africa.

It’s a sequel to “Semi-Soet” (Semi Sweet), a 2012 South African hit about an ad agency careerist, Jaci (Anel Alexander) who hires a model to be her fake boyfriend, J.P. (Nico Panagio) to close a deal. The new film brings back our leads, now long-married and committed to remaining baby-free a dozen years later.

But there’s this OTHER deal with a baby product empire. Maybe if they pretend to have a baby? Surely they wouldn’t…

Ah, but that’s the point of bringing back their besties, long-married/lots of kids Karla (Sandra Vaughn, who co-wrote the sequel with Alexander) and Hertjie (Louw Venter). They’ve been breeding like guppies over the past dozen years. Of course they’ve got an infant to lend out. They INSIST.

That’s literally the plot of this bland and predictable farce, with Karla and Hertjie shoving their newborn onto Jaci/J.P. at one of those “weekend retreat at a resort” competitions to “win” the Texas-based yBab Co. account.

Every single thing in that last sentence only happens in film comedies, most often in the least original ones.

J.P. has let out that his “swimmers” have problems, so Jaci can’t get pregnant. But she is, and even though it’s by him, she can’t bring herself to tell him she’s with child. So they’re stuck with her secret and a pooping, borrowed baby who seems to justify J.P.’s aversion to parenthood with every fresh diaperload. Jaci can’t tell him because she thinks he’s baby-phobic. As we see how ineptly Jaci handles the infant herself, we wonder if either of these two — rich as they are — is cut out for parenthood.

J.P.’s old boarding school rival (Neels van Jaarsveld) and his celebrity wife (Diann Lawrenson) are up for the same account. That “baby” seems suspicious to them, so a little sabotage-their-scam is in order.

Pal Hertjie wonders if their old classmate “still has that ‘Punch Me’ face?” Hint. Of course he does.

Baby monitor gags, lost baby jokes, a diaper “tasting” game straight out of baby showers and a whole subplot about a start-up rugby league in Dubai needing advertising/PR help, with a security-conscious sheikh playing into the narrative as another reason “We can’t have a baby” all figure in what’s to come.

If you’ve seen one “what’s the deal with babies” comedy, you’ve heard the “What do they FEED him?” (in Afrikaans, or dubbed into English) joke more than once.

Even dubbed, the dialogue has lots of South African slang for barbecue (braii), lots of talk about the ‘Boks — if you remember the Matt Damon/Morgan Freeman drama “Invictus,” you remember the national rugby team is called The Springboks — and the like.

Our South African-born “Texan” entrepreneur (Hélène Truter) speaks with a South African/Texan drawl. Most peculiar.

The odd Elon Musk reference just underscores the film’s affluent resorts and exclusive housing developments setting, and the fact that Black faces are rarely seen in this (comic, cinematic, not-wholly-post-Apartheid) world.

The tone is light enough, even if we have to wonder why these particular rich Afrikaners haven’t figured out money makes procreating easy.

But what’s most-missed in this corny comedy are jokes. Just a couple of one-liners, a sight gag and a lone bit of physical shtick translate as funny.

The rest is as colorless as its cast.

Rating: TV-PG, pooh-pooh jokes

Cast: Anel Alexander, Nico Paganio, Louw Venter, Sandra Vaughn,
Diaan Lawrenson, Hélène Truter and Neels van Jaarsveld

Credits: Directed by Joshua Rous, scripted by Sandra Vaughn and Anel Alexander. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:38

This one’s giving off “Stranger Things/Village of the Damned” vibes.

Been meaning to post it all weekend, as this second trailer is one of the best previews in theaters right now.

Toby Huss, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan also star in this August 8 thriller.

So the kids are kidnapped to be used as…”Weapons?” Call us intrigued.