Category: Film Reviews by Amy

Last Night in Soho (R)

A present-day young woman with a romantic view of 1960s London suddenly finds herself traveling there nightly in Last Night in Soho, a not-the-best but not-the-worst ghosty story from director Edgar Wright.

Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) loves 1960s London fashion and the 1960s music her grandmother Peggy (Rita Tushingham) listens to. Stories of London are also tied up in Eloise’s mom (Aimee Cassettari), who died by suicide when Eloise was little but whom Eloise still appears to communicate with, such as when Eloise sees her smiling mother just before Peggy brings Eloise the letter saying she’s been accepted into a London fashion school.

Peggy doesn’t know that Eloise is still seeing her mom, but she she worries that the stress of the big city will get to Eloise. Eloise does get a little freaked out when the taxi driver’s chatter gets a little too friendly and she doesn’t quite fit in with her roommate at the school dorm, Jocasta (Synnove Karlsen), who instantly establishes herself as a queen bee.

When Eloise sees an ad for a studio apartment, she decides to move out on her own and is, at first, delighted by the space. In addition to an in-the-thick-of-things location, the apartment gives Eloise a psychic connection to a young woman who lived there decades earlier. When Eloise goes to sleep, she finds herself entering the life of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a blonde with ambitions to be a singer. She goes to swanky clubs, wearing beautiful clothes, and she meets Jack (Matt Smith), a handsome man who offers to help her get gigs. Eloise is quickly enamored with this new life, even if it is somebody else’s that she’s sort of virtual-reality-ing her way into. In the waking world, she buys herself a coat like Sandie’s at a vintage shop, starts designing a dress for a class similar to one of Sandie’s cocktail dresses and even gets Sandie’s haircut. Some of Sandie’s flirting abilities even rub off on Eloise, who is slowly making a friend in classmate John (Michael Ajao).

But then Eloise sees some darker scenes from Sandie’s life and starts to wonder if all of these “ghosts” really are in the past or if there are dangers that have carried into the present — and if a mysterious older man (Terence Stamp) who hangs out at the bar where Eloise works is one of those dangers.

Many of the elements of Last Night in Soho are extremely fun — from Eloise’s whole 1960s mod thing (which reminded me of the 1990s swing revival) to everything about the catty Jocasta character. I like the relationship Eloise has with whatever her abilities are — she just sort of accepts that she is seeing ghosts, but she doesn’t entirely know yet how to interpret what she’s seeing. This character could have seemed extremely daffy and fragile but McKenzie makes her seem more just uncertain and sheltered but also aware of her naivete.

The movie also has a delightful-to-see supporting character, which I won’t spoil except to say I was both happy to get to spend time with this person and then sad when I realized it might be the last new role I see that person in.

Other elements of Last Night in Soho feel underbaked. Sandie’s story builds to high drama, but then it resolves sort of too fast. Am I saying I wished the movie had been longer? No? But maybe added to and then edited down again, with some of the choppier bits of the story smoothed out. B-

Rated R for bloody violence, sexual content, language, brief drug material and brief graphic nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Edgar Wright with a screenplay by Edgar Wright & Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Last Night in Soho is an hour and 56 minutes long and distributed by Focus Features.

Army of Thieves (TV-MA)

A group of quirky criminals attempts to crack three of the toughest safes ever created in Army of Thieves, a prequel to Army of the Dead focused on Matthias Schweighöfer’s Dieter.

In this movie, the zombie apocalypse has only just begun in Las Vegas, so while Dieter is worried about zombies and even having nightmares about them, he’s still working his boring job in an idyllic-seeming German town and eating his sad work sandwich under a tiny awning in an alleyway. Then he meets Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel), who has watched his YouTube videos about safe-cracking and believes he just might have the ability to tackle the safes built decades earlier by a man named Hans Wagner. Like the Gotterdammerung, the safe Dieter faces in Army of the Dead, Wagner built three other safes named after parts of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. These safes are supposed to be impossible to crack and if someone tries and fails, the safe is supposed to lock forever.

Gwendoline wants to hit all three safes, which are set to be decommissioned soon. Tens of millions of dollars await all the members of the team if they succeed; those members include hacker Korina (Ruby O. Fee), getaway driver Rolph (Guz Khan) and muscle/crazy guy/Gwendoline’s boyfriend Brad Cage (Stuart Martin). But for Gwendoline and for Dieter, the real prize is in being about to meet the challenge of Wagner’s creations.

For Interpol agent Delacroix (Jonathan Cohen), his grand challenge is finding and catching Gwendoline. He quickly realizes that her plan is to go after all the safes and he is determined to catch her in the act — even though, as his fellow agents point out, there’s this whole zombie apocalypse thing, which might arguably be a bigger deal.

Maybe having absolutely no expectations for this thing after the “good ideas but long and sort of scattered” Army of the Dead helped because I kind of enjoyed this. Not loved it, not “wheeeee!” the whole time, just had some fun, some of the time. As this movie itself points out, the machinations of a heist in a heist movie, with its sleight of hand and misdirection and wigs, is always fun and we get a couple of examples of those in this movie. I also enjoyed the group dynamic. Everybody on this team is some kind of oddball and portrayed as such but with a light touch. Dieter is an excellent “talented dork” character, having gained his criminally useful safe-cracking skills from a love of puzzles and a childhood spent as an outsider.

The performances here also bring a good energy to this endeavor, which is peppy despite an over two-hour runtime. Emmanuel is the movie’s big star; I know her mostly from supporting roles on Game of Thrones and in the Fast and Furious movies but here she shows her ability to really carry off the blend of action, humor and general bad-assery that is needed for an action movie lead. Surely there’s some spy thing, some Marvel movie that can capitalize on this.

Army of Thieves feels like a perfect “let’s just watch something fun” movie that doesn’t require too much attention or brain power and delivers a reasonably good time. B-

Rated TV-MA. Directed by Matthias Schweighöfer with a screenplay by Shay Hatten, Army of Thieves is two hours and nine minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (R)

A young woman makes a documentary about her search for her biological mother in Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, a universe expansion sidequel/reboot thing.

It also took me a minute to remember that the intentional documentary as setup for a horror film was the premise of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, not 2007’s original Paranormal Activity, which was largely home video camera footage. Here, Margot (Emily Bader) and her friend Chris (Roland Buck III) are making a documentary about an Amish family that she believes is related to her. Margot was adopted and all she initially knows about her birth mother comes from some hospital security footage showing her leaving baby Margot in a doorway. Now, 25-ish Margot has found Samuel (Henry Ayres-Brown), a 20-something Amish man that 23andMe says is related to her. Samuel, living apart from his family during his rumspringa, agrees to meet up with Margot and travel with Margot and Chris to the Baylor family farm, where Margot can learn more about her mother. The film team is joined by Dale (Dan Lippert), a big doofy sound guy, and a van loaded with equipment.

At first the family, represented by Jacob (Tom Nowicki), who we eventually learn is Margot’s biological grandfather, doesn’t want these outsiders hanging around. But he decides to let them stay and Margot and Chris try to uncover more about Margot’s mother from the fairly tight-lipped community. But along with the usual cultural differences between these filmmaker kids and the Amish farmers, Margot and Chris start to notice oddities — a middle-of-the-night meeting of torch-carrying farmers, odd noises from the supposedly uninhabited attic — that hint at something spookier.

At one point late in the film, Dale and Chris debate whether the Baylor family really is Amish at all, or just using it as a cover. But to what end, Chris asks. And that was kind of my feeling about the whole movie: to what end does the movie make any of the choices it does — from elements as large as the use of the documentary to set the plot in motion to smaller details, like specific creaks and “there was something else in the room” that don’t make much sense once you find out the nature of the Scary Thing.

Especially earlier on, the Paranormal Activity movies did a good job of letting its characters use video technology to freak themselves out; I remember watching (in the second one maybe?) footage of a pool cleaner for a while. Scary pool cleaner footage. Next of Kin feels like it has a lot more “things” happening, not just one small element of spookiness per scene, but the result is that the movie often gets in its own way and doesn’t offer a clear idea of why it’s showing us what it’s showing us. C

Rated R for violence and bloody images and language throughout, according to the MPA on filmratings.com (actually, the rating seems largely swear-word based, with some goriness shoved in at the end). Directed by William Eubank with a screenplay by Christopher Landon, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin is an hour and 38 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures on Paramount+.

FILM

Venues

Bank of NH Stage
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Shows

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (R, 1984) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas with multiple daily screenings through Thursday, Nov. 4.

• French Dispatch (R, 2021) on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 5, through Sunday, Nov. 7, at 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres.

• Spencer (R, 2021) on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 6:30 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 5, through Sunday, Nov. 7, at 1, 4 and 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• The Bolshoi Ballet — Spartacus, a broadcast presentation captured live, Sunday, Nov. 7, at 12:55 p.m. at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord. Tickets $15.

• The Big Parade (1925), a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey. Tickets start at $10.

• Hot Water (1924) starring Harold Lloyd, a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Sunday, Nov. 14, at 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• Warren Miller’s Winter Starts Nowat The Music Hall in Portsmouth, Thursday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Nov. 19, at 6 and 9 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 20, at 4 & 7 p.m. Tickets start at $28.

• National Theatre Live No Man’s Land,a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Nov. 21, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

Singin’ in the Rain

See Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Cyd Charisse and Rita Moreno in 1952’s musical film Singin’ in the Rain on Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 10 a.m. at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588), a Senior Movie Mornings screening. Tickets cost $10.

Featured photo: Last Night in Soho. Courtesy photo.

Dune (PG-13)

An interplanetary empire is set on the road to war in Dune, which a title card rather optimistically calls “part one.”

And just to set the scene for my Dune experience: I’ve neither read any of the books nor watched any of the previous Dune movies or TV series. So I am coming in fresh to this universe.

As the movie opens, an unseen emperor of the known universe orders a family/political entity known as House Atreides to take control of a planet called Arrakis, a desert planet that is the only known source of a substance called spice. Spice facilitates interstellar travel, er, somehow and has psychotropic qualities. It is super valuable, which is why House Harkonnen, the previous rulers of Arrakis, are pretty peeved at having Arrakis taken out of their control. But the House Harkonnen head, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard in a fat suit that seems to also allow him to float), thinks that this is just the emperor’s way of taking both Atreides and Harkonnen down a few pegs, since he knows this move will lead to war between the two houses.

Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) knows all this, but he has plans for Arrakis, plans that involve working with the Fremen, the oppressed local people of Arrakis. When he shows up at the planet with his family — including concubine Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and son and heir Paul (Timothée Chalamet) — he is ready for danger but hoping for peace. Jessica, a member of some kind of magic-y lady religious order, has abilities including getting people to do what she says when she sort of Jedi-forces them using a power called the Voice. She has been training Paul to use similar abilities and has plans for him beyond just having him take over for his father one day.

Paul, in the tradition of all raw Luke Skywalker/Hamlet types, isn’t quite sure what he wants, but he has some inkling of what might be in his future due to dreams he has, many featuring Chani (Zendaya), whose glowy blue eyes identify her as one of the Fremen.

To some extent everything I’ve said here is just setup. The movie follows the Atreideses as they move onto Arrakis and what happens next. We meet Atreides warrior-types Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin). We also meet Fremen-associated people like Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and Dr. Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). There are a lot of characters here with a lot of stories and “serves as the this for that group.” There is also a fair amount of explaining this universe and of getting all the pieces in place. This feels like “Season 1” of a Game of Thrones-type show, getting us all set up for a multi-season story arc.

And what a beautiful-looking and -sounding series that would be. Dune looks absolutely gorgeous. Every scene is visually perfect — lighting, set design, costuming, colors, camera angles. The dust-filled wind, the helicopters that look like insects. The movie is generally in muted tones but there are accents of bright color — many from story-significant elements, like the personal shields people wear that turn blue when impacted or the bright eyes of the Fremen. Nearly every shot of this movie is visually arresting (which, because this movie is on HBO Max through Nov. 21 as well as in theaters, you actually can press pause and gaze to your heart’s content).

The movie also sounds great. The score (by Hans Zimmer) is majestic — underlining bigness, vastness and importance when needed. It is haunting and when mixed with the human voices that are often whispery or at a throat-singing deepness or sometimes both the whole effect is kind of awe-inspiring.

So A+ work on all that.

My question about this movie is does all this loveliness weigh it down? Is that why this movie feels so slow and inert? Every one of these beautiful scenes has a kind of “walking through hip-deep water” pacing, as though the speed isn’t quite on slow-mo but is, like, halfway there. (I mean, there is slow-mo, lots of slow-mo, but even the regular- mo feels pretty languorous.) Even though the movie has battle scenes and plenty of action, it never feels like it’s truly energized. There is a half-asleep, still-need-my-coffee feel to everything.

Which puts the performances somewhere in between the down-to-the-smallest-detail impressiveness of the look and sound of this movie and the baffling, frequently boring pacing (another good thing about seeing this movie on streaming: you can go back and see what you missed if you fall asleep halfway through; I didn’t but awakeness did not come without struggle). Isaac, Ferguson and Chalamet are fine, even compelling and engrossing in moments. But they don’t quite escape the sleepiness around them, nor does Brolin, who feels more regular-speed but doesn’t get enough screen time to make a difference. Momoa also brings a kind of liveliness to things but again isn’t around nearly enough.

The strange result of all of this is a movie where everything about Dune — even the prospect of a sequel and the continuing story and the internet rabbithole I disappeared to reading the Wikipedia for the Dune books — is more interesting than the act of sitting through the movie itself. It is definitely worth a watch and it is definitely boring. I ended the movie not really caring about any particular character or storyline but absolutely fascinated by the movie as an art object. What kind of recommendation is that, you ask? Beats me — a shaky B?

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Denis Villeneuve with a screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth (based on, according to Wikipedia, the first half of the book by Frank Herbert), Dune is two hours and 35 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. In theaters and on HBO Max until Nov. 21.

Ron’s Gone Wrong (PG)

A benignly evil tech company heightens children’s sense of loneliness and their ability to bully each other via sleek new devices in Ron’s Gone Wrong, a pretty depressing read on the real world that is sort of cuted up with animation and a funny robot.

Barney (voice of Jack Dylan Grazer) feels very much like the odd kid out at his middle school: his family home is tended Old Worldily by his Bulgarian grandma Donka (voice of Olivia Coleman), his widowed dad Graham (voice of Ed Helms) is desperately busy trying to sell novelty items via Zoom, Barney’s various science-y interests (including rocks) have him branded as a bit of a nerd and, most deadly of all, he does not own a B*Bot, the hot new tech that all the other kids at school have. The B*Bot is part robot, part iPhone, part parental nightmare — all in kind of an EVE from Wall-E package. The B*Bots upload all available digital information about the child user and then “know” everything about them and can help them meet other kids who have the same interests. In addition the B*Bot follows the child everywhere, can dance with the kid, take the kid on immersive virtual reality adventures and take constant photos and videos to post to the kid’s various social media pages and instantly ask for likes and follows from surrounding kids.

Because I am an Old, this all seems like a dystopic hellscape that we are probably six months away from here in the real world. But to Barney, the B*Bot, promising to be your “best friend out of the box,” is the sole object of his birthday desires. With B*Bot, he hopes, he will have a robot friend and maybe finally be able to make some connections with human friends too.

Unfortunately for Barney, Graham is both clueless and light on cash, so at first he doesn’t get Barney the desired bot. But after seeing him pranked by some bullies, Graham runs down to the B*Bot store, offering money and Donka’s goat in trade for a new B*Bot. The store turns him away, but in the loading area he meets a delivery driver who has a damaged B*Bot he’s willing to sell off the books.

When Barney meets the B*Bot he eventually calls Ron (voice of Zach Galifianakis), he’s initially delighted. But then he realizes Ron is off — he doesn’t have all of the B*Bot operating system, can’t seem to access the network and has only uploaded the “A” section of his system’s encyclopedia, which is why he starts off calling Barney Absalom. On the way to the B*Bot store to return Ron, Barney discovers that no operating system also means no safety controls and that Ron is quite effective at fending off bullies. Once corporate — in the form of a hoodie-wearing CEO guy named Marc (voice of Justice Smith) and a Tim-Cook-ish-looking older guy named Andrew (voice of Rob Delaney) — finds out about the rogue bot, they seek to capture him, but Barney, who teaches Ron how to do his friend duties, feels like he’s finally found someone to connect with.

My biggest problem with this movie (and this may be a mild spoiler) is that in the end, the omnipresent tech company spreading unhappiness throughout the land of tweens and teens isn’t the problem, it’s that their device isn’t, like, authentic enough or some techy meta-verse garbage. And if that sounds all “get your Instagram off my lawn” that’s a completely fair criticism of my social media mindset but also the suggestion that just some algorithm tweaks would make social media full of joy feels pretty cynical (which is particularly odd as Andrew’s cynicism about the purpose of B*Bots ultimately being selling kids stuff is one of the movie’s examples of his villainy). I understand the realities of the world, but that doesn’t mean I have to pay money to have my kids watch a movie with the message that what they really need is better social media and a more unpredictable robot.

I suppose if you put all of that aside, sure this movie is cute. Ron is a fun character, who, because his mission is friendship-based, the movie uses to explain the essence of friendship. Being friends isn’t just about people listening to you (or heart-click liking your posts) but is a relationship two people are in together, choosing to be friends and be there for each other. When compared to the more transactional nature of how the movie presents social media friendships (you make content and the other person follows you and they’re your “friend” and then you both move on to making new “friend” connections), the examination of friendship as an organic thing that needs continuous tending is interesting. And it’s presented in a tween/young teen-understandable way. And there are robot-y hijinxs and funny goat bits and kid social politics, played for gentle laughs. I don’t know that this movie would hold the attention of a younger audience but maybe for kids around 8 and up, who are starting to think about the nature of friendships and have some knowledge of the social media world and can deal with some scenes of conversation, Ron’s Gone Wrong is fun enough to keep them engaged. Me, I’ll be over here on my lawn, telling the B*Bots to shoo. C+

Rated PG for some rude material, thematic elements and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Sarah Smith and Jean-Philippe Vine and co-directed by Octavio E. Rodriguez with a screenplay by Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith, Ron’s Gone Wrong is an hour and 46 minutes long and distributed by Twentieth Century Studios in theaters (with at least a 45-day theatrical exclusivity window, according to BoxOfficePro).

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry, amctheatres.com

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Park Theatre
19 Main St., Jaffrey
theparktheatre.org

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• Howl’s Moving Castle (PG, 2004) at Cinemark Rockingham Park, AMC Methuen and Regal Fox Run on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 7 p.m.

• Beetlejuice (PG, 1988) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas in Epping with daily screenings through Thursday, Oct. 28.

• The Phantom of the Opera (1925), a silent film starring Lon Chaney, with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m at Park Theatre. Admission $12.

• The Thing (1982) screening on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres.

• Nosferatu (1922), a silent film, Thursday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Rex, featuring live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis. Admission costs $10.

• The Shining (R, 1980) on Friday, Oct. 29, at 2 & 6:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (R, 1987) on Friday, Oct. 29, at 2:30, 5 and 7:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres.

• The Blackbird (1921), a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Friday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• The Innocents (1961) at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Friday, Oct 29, and Saturday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m.

• The Invisible Man (1933) and The Wolf Man(1941) on Saturday, Oct. 30, at 1 p.m. at AMC Londonderry, Cinemark Rockingham Park and Regal Fox Run.

• The Witches (PG, 1990) on Saturday, Oct. 30, at 1, 4 & 7 p.m at Red River Theatres.

• Outside the Law (1920) and The Unholy Three (1925), silent films directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2 p.m. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 30, at 2 p.m.

• Psycho (R, 1960) on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2, 5 & 8 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• The Exorcist (R, 1973) on Sunday, Oct. 31, at 2 & 5:15 p.m. at Red River Theatres.

• Where East Is East (1929) a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, at Wilton Town Hall Theatre Sunday, Oct. 31, at 2 p.m. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• Night of the Living Dead(1968) on Sunday, Oct. 31, at 1:30 & 4:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

Lon Chaney Weekend

Wilton Town Hall Theatre (40 Main St. in Wilton; wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456) will present a series of silent films starring Lon Chaney and featuring live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis this weekend. On Friday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m. catch The Blackbird (1921). On Saturday, Oct. 30, the lineup features Outside the Law (1920) and The Unholy Three (1925), starting at 2 p.m. On Sunday, Oct. 31, see Where East Is East (1929) at 2 p.m. Admission to all films is free; a $10 donation is suggested.

Featured photo: Dune. Courtesy photo.

The Last Duel (R)

Matt Damon and Adam Driver fight one-on-one but all I’m going to remember is Ben Affleck’s very blond hair in The Last Duel, a movie that takes, like, two hours and 32 minutes to say “gaaah, the patriarchy, amirite?”

Which, yes, movie, gaah, the patriarchy. Thanks for really underlining this one example. See also most of recorded history, which this movie doesn’t seem to think I’m aware of.

For a movie this long and full of Stuff, it has a rather simple plot. Ambitious blowhard Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) rapes Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), wife of ambitious blowhard (but not as good at it) knight Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), in medieval-times France (1386). We see the incident and a lot of context around it from each person’s perspective — first de Carrouges, then Le Gris and then Marguerite. (We are forced to see the actual assault twice. Even though one time is supposed to be from Le Gris’ perspective, I don’t think the movie ever really tries to convince us that we’re not watching a violent and unwanted encounter.) The two men paint themselves as the blameless hero of their versions. In Marguerite’s version, which the movie tells us is the truth (but also even from the men’s own point of views we can guess as much), we get the unvarnished picture of just how unpleasant life is for Marguerite in particular and women in general.

The movie is bookended by the actual duel between de Carrouges (who is demanding “justice” for the wrong which, as he sees it, was done to him) and Le Gris, where the winner will be presumed to be the truthful party about the charge. If de Carrouges loses, Marguerite will be judged as having lied about the assault and will be burned to death. To get us to the big duel, the movie jumps around a lot in time as it shows us the men’s relationship over the years and their dealings with Pierre d’Alencon (Ben Affleck), their nobleman boss. He takes a shine to Le Gris and deeply dislikes de Carrouges, both on a personal level and for his assorted military failures. Le Gris clearly prizes his relationship with d’Alencon, which wins him prestige and property, but he also has a longstanding friendship with de Carrouges.

I’m not entirely sure what the movie thinks it’s doing with the long setup between de Carrouges, d’Alencon and Le Gris. D’Alencon is painted as a prosperous and powerful man who gives in to his every whim (many of his scenes would put Game of Thrones to shame with their sexposition) and who has a wife who knows her role and plays it and probably isn’t d’Alencon’s biggest fan. Le Gris seems to think of himself as cultured and sensible but is also vain and petty — not as petty, though, as de Carrouges. De Carrouges is desperate for respect and position but is brittle, unlikeable, not terribly bright and has absolutely no social intelligence. I think the movie maybe thinks it’s putting us on de Carrouges’ and Le Gris’ sides during their versions (or at least giving them layers) but there is never really a point when any of these people is presented as all that complex or compelling or as having any kind of self-awareness.

Marguerite is painted as a smart, well-read woman who gets stuck with her unpleasant husband due to some poor choices by her father and is at her happiest when de Carrouges is off losing battles in Scotland and she’s running the estate well enough to afford a fancy new dress. But even when she isn’t saddled with de Carrouges’ company, she’s stuck dealing with his bitter mother (Harriet Walter).

Look, this movie bugged me, presenting some obvious observations about gender politics as though they were blindingly brilliant insights and taking minutes and minutes to give us information about characters when small moments and details would have done it better and smarter. But. But there is a dark sense of, well, not humor exactly but maybe wit in the dialogue and in some elements of the story — which I credit to Nicole Holofcener, who co-wrote this movie with Damon and Affleck. Holofcener, writer of movies like Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Enough Said and Please Give, is really good at moments between characters and little details that give us insight into someone. There is some of that here — often drowned out, like a sea of ranch dressing smothering a few slices of cucumber, by a bunch of just dumb business with, like, de Carrouges’ pride or Le Gris’s self-importance or every single thing to do with d’Alencon. Actually, I kind of enjoyed all the Affleck d’Alencon stuff. It’s such an Affleck-y performance (with such a hilarious hair/beard situation), so entertainingly, goofily sleazy. I don’t know about anybody else, but Affleck seems to be enjoying himself.

Doing actual good work is Comer, managing to present a recognizable human person in the medieval garb. She brought something to what could have been a real cardboard cutout role, particularly in the scenes where we’re seeing the two men’s versions of her. Even then we manage to see the person and her thoughts that they’re not picking up on.

The Last Duel is frustrating. It is way way too long for what it’s doing. It’s very impressed with itself for some real “book report written the night before it’s due” level examination of issues. And the performances by its trio of male actors are frequently daffy. But some of that daffiness is purposeful, I think, and it’s in those moments when the movie is, if not enjoyable exactly, quite watchable. C+

Rated R for strong violence including sexual assault, some graphic nudity, and language, according to the MPA on filmratngs.com. Directed by Ridley Scott with a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener & Ben Affleck & Matt Damon, The Last Duel is two hours and 32 minutes long and distributed by Twentieth Century Studios in theaters.

Halloween Kills (R)

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode in Halloween Kills, the latest in a franchise that feels like it’s run out of ideas.

Actually, Jamie Lee Curtis largely gives us Laurie from a hospital bed, where she ended up due to a stab in the gut received in the last entry of this series (2018’s Halloween, which is available for rent or purchase and via Hulu and Sling TV). Sometimes Laurie is even unconscious. File this under “nice work if you can get it” and full respect to Jamie Lee Curtis for saying I’m going to stay in bed for a chunk of this one.

As you may dimly recall, Halloween ended with Laurie, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and Karen’s daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) trapping Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle, credited on IMDb as The Shape), the mask-wearing knife-wielding extremely-serial killer, in the basement of her fortified cabin, which was then on fire. And thus dies Michael.

Ha.

Because they haven’t seen the previous movies, in this outing, firefighters arrive at Laurie’s house to put out the fire and are then, naturally, murdered gruesomely as a freed Michael sets out to continue his evening of ambling menacingly and murder. We also get some glimpses back at 1978 and the original spate of killings to weave in stories of the now late-middle-age survivors and cops including Officer Hawkins (Will Patton), Lindsey (Kyle Richards) and Marion (Nancy Stephens). Allyson’s boyfriend, Cameron (Dylan Arnold), and his father, Lonnie (Robert Longstreet), who had a run-in with Myers back in the day, are also mixed up in the night of murder, which is still Halloween. Tommy decides that enough is enough and riles up the townsfolk with the easily chantable “evil dies tonight” call to action to hunt down and kill Michael Myers once and for all.

Ha.

There are a couple of instances in this movie of people saying that Michael Myers isn’t a normal man, he has strength beyond a mere mortal. In how it portrays Myers, the movie goes way beyond that into “completely unkillable by any means” — and here lies the problem. If nothing can kill Myers and you can never really get away from him, then where’s the tension? There isn’t even much question of how Myers is going to kill everybody because popping up behind them and stabbing them is almost always the answer. The 2018 Halloween seemed to deal with this by adding in some making fun of true crime podcasts and by giving Laurie a hand-built arsenal to fight Myers with (though, looking back at my review, I say that it’s still mostly stab-centric). Here, the only new idea seems to be “what if a bunch of people tried to kill Michael Myers at once” and something that feels like “yada yada mob anger, point TK” but even that feels only half-heartedly applied, what with lots of instances of a group of people going to search for Myers and then approaching him one by one. (Also, this mob attempts to hunt a known slasher largely with baseball bats as their primary weapon. It’s a weird choice.)

The best part of Halloween Kills is its extremely retro visuals (from the font of the title cards to all the cars and wardrobe choices that would feel right at home in the late 1970s) and score. It creates a mood, sets out the building blocks of familiar movie and story-telling elements and even manages to get some actors doing solid horror-movie work (including some moments when it seems to have a little fun with some one-scene slashee characters). I just wish Halloween Kills would do something more exciting, energetic, unexpected, funny or even goofy with its premise and characters. C

Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, grisly images, language and some drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by David Gordan Green and written by Scott Teems & Danny McBride & David Gordan Green, Halloween Kills is an hour and 45 minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios in theaters and via Peacock.

FILM

Venues

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (R, 1984) on Thursday, Oct. 21, 7 p.m. at the Rex Theatre. Tickets cost $10 ($8 with student ID).

• Frenzy (1972) screening on Thursday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Halloween (R, 1978) Thursday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. at the Music Hall. Tickets cost $15.

• 21+ Trivia Night for Rocky Horror Picture Show at Chunky’s in Manchester on Thursday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. Reserve a seat with the purchase of a $5 food voucher.

• The Velvet Underground (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres, Friday, Oct. 22, through Sunday, Oct. 24, at 1, 4 & 7 p.m.

• Bergman Island (R, 2021) (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres, Friday, Oct. 22, through Sunday, Oct. 24, at 4:30 p.m.

• Lamb (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres, Friday, Oct. 22, through Sunday, Oct. 24, at 1:30 & 7:30 p.m.

• On the Beach (1959) screening Friday, Oct. 22, and Saturday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre.

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Friday, Oct. 22, and Saturday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre.

• Fire Shut Up In My Bones — The Met Opera Live at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Saturday, Oct. 23, at 12:55 p.m. Tickets cost $26.

• Huckleberry Finn (1974), a musical adaptation, on Saturday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre.

• Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone (PG, 2001) at Chunky’s in Manchester and Nashua on Saturday, Oct. 23, at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m. Dressing in costume is encouraged.

• The Bridges of Madison County (PG-13, 1995) as well as the presentation of a new documentary film, at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m.

• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (G, 1971) on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 3 p.m. at the Rex Theatre in Manchester. Tickets $12.

• Beetlejuice (PG, 1988) at O’neil Cinemas in Epping with multiple screenings Monday, Oct. 25, through Thursday, Oct. 28. $5.

• The Great Gatsby (PG-13, 2013) Baz Luhrmann’s high-energy take at Rex Theatre on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $12.

Vintage railroad melodramas

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum will present two train-focused silent films on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m. at the Warner Town Hall in Warner. See The West-Bound Limited (1923), starring Ella Hall (pictured), and Transcontinental Limited (1926) with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis. Tickets cost $10; see nhtelephonemuseum.org.

Featured photo: The Last Duel. Courtesy photo.

No Time To Die (PG-13)

Daniel Craig appears to be having some actual fun as James Bond in the long pandemic-delayed No Time To Die, allegedly his last time out as the character.

I’ll admit that at some point fairly early in this movie I stopped trying to follow the plot and decided to just enjoy the ride — the zippy European cars, the well-choreographed fights, the handsome Daniel Craig. And I think that’s fine; something about Craig’s performance here is looser and more energetic than, say, Spectre, this movie’s predecessor from 2015. The movie doesn’t need you to think very hard about who this guy is and how he’s connected to that guy from the previous movie to be in and enjoy the moment. Craig’s performance plays into this; he sells some of the jokes and dry humor of Bond better than in previous movies. He gets more fight scenes that seem to have some visual wit and show off his super agent abilities without making him seem like an unharmable robot. When Ana de Armas shows up as an agent on a mission with Bond, she feels just right, just this side of silly, and with a kind of buddy/mentor-mentee/fan chemistry with Bond.

Also, the plot here, like the plot of so many Bond movies, is kind of a jumble of: ridiculously fortified yet easy to breach compounds, shadowy people pulling the strings, not one but three villains, at least two shadowy international organizations whose evil scheme is overly complicated, strife within and between intelligence agencies, moments when Bond has to Go It Alone and a song by a current big deal pop star (Billie Eilish). All the standard Bond stuff. The movie has nice little callbacks to this-iteration-of-Bond characters past, like Vesper (Eva Green) and original M (Judi Dench). There are some fun surprises that aren’t super surprising, there are some fun shots of Bond in beach locales.

More specifically (but still very roughly): The movie opens with Bond and Madeleine Swan (Léa Seydoux), his love interest from Spectre (and yes I did have to look that up because vague familiarity is all that registered for me), on a sunny holiday in some sunny seaside European town. Actually, the movie opens with a flashback of a traumatic event from Madeleine’s childhood and then the sunny European vacation, all cars on cliffside roads and swanky hotels. But then Bond is nearly killed — first by a bomb and then by a bunch of hitmen, one of whom helpfully drives a motorcycle, allowing him to get kicked off his motorcycle and Bond to do some fun motorcycle stunts. Spectre is behind this, which he knows because they have literally left a card with their symbol on it, and Bond is certain that Madeleine is working for them and has helped to trap him. He decides to trust her just enough to get her safely on a train but not enough to ever see her again.

Five years later, Bond seems just fine with his new retirement life in what I think is Jamaica when American CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, always fun) shows up to tempt him into One More Mission. Felix and the CIA but not British intelligence are looking for a scientist, Obruchev (David Dencik), who has developed a scary weapon and was kidnapped from/sold-out MI 6 (or maybe a little of both). They think Spectre has him in Cuba and they know that Bond is still hot to bring down Spectre, still in operation even though big boss Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is in prison. Bond isn’t interested — or at least he isn’t that interested until a lady whom Wikipedia tells me is named Nomi (Lashana Lynch) seems to pick Bond up at a club but is really just there to tell him that she’s MI 6 and that he needs to stay out of this whole Cuba/Obruchev thing. Naturally, that’s when Bond decides to get involved.

(Without giving away too much about Nomi — like the reason why I didn’t remember her name — she adds a really fun element to the story and becomes a strong part of the adventure.)

It’s not important to know too much more going in. My favorite Bond Scooby gang of M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Q (Ben Whishaw) and Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) is back. We get the assistant to the regional manager villain in the form of Primo (Dali Benssalah), who occasionally tips over the line into goofy but it’s fine. In addition to Blofeld, we get another Big Bad in a character played by Rami Malek. There are some fun locations — aforementioned vacation Europe, London of course, Jamaica, Cuba, a forest in northern Europe, a no-holds-barred bad guy lair that combines an almost futuristic minimalism with mid-century Soviet stylings, on an island.

What else could you want from a Bond movie? This movie is two hours and 43 minutes long and I saw it in (totally unnecessary) 3D and I still had fun.

Maybe Craig was struck with some “leave it all out on the field” burst of excitement for this character, maybe this movie leaned in to all the best parts of Bond and wasn’t encumbered by trying to build some ongoing story, maybe that Bond documentary available via Apple (Being James Bond — it’s about 45 minutes long and worth a watch) actually helped me get excited about the franchise again. Whatever combination of movie magic and the pandemic-related drought of big event movies gave this movie its sparkle, the result is a long but highly watchable mix of action and nostalgia helmed by a thoroughly engaging leading man — and a solid final chapter to an overall strong run of Bond films. B+

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga with a screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, No Time To Die is two hours and 43 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by MGM. Want more Craig as Bond? The four previous films — 2006’s Casino Royale, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, 2012’s Skyfall and 2015’s Spectre — are all available to rent or own. Spectre and Skyfall are also streaming on Hulu. Paramount + currently has Skyfall.

FILM

Venues

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Shows

• Poltergeist (PG, 1982) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas with multiple daily screenings through Thursday, Oct. 14.

• House on Haunted Hill (1959) screening on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres.

• Night of the Creeps (R, 1986) at The Strand on Thursday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• Small Engine Repair(R, 2021) screening at The Music Hall in Portsmouth on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15.

• 21+ Trivia Night for Hocus Pocus at Chunky’s in Manchester on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 7:30 p.m. Reserve a seat with the purchase of a $5 food voucher.

• Bergman Island (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Oct. 15, and Saturday, Oct. 16, at 1, 4, & 7 p.m. and Sunday Oct. 17, at 4 and 7 p.m.

• Lamb (R, 2021) at Red River Theatre Friday, Oct. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 17, at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m.

• I’m Your Man (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Oct. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 17, at 4:30 p.m.

• Beetlejuice (PG, 1986) screening at The Strand on Friday, Oct. 15, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• Dead Alive (R, 1992) screening at The Strand in Dover on Friday, Oct. 15, 9 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• Falling For Figaro (NR, 2020) screening at The Music Hall on Saturday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15.

• Disney Zombies (TV-G, 2018) at The Strand on Saturday, Oct. 16, 3 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• Raphaell Revealed (NR, 2020) screening at Red River Theatres on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m.

• National Theatre Live Cyrano de Bergerac, a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets $15 ($12 for students).

• Frankenweenie (PG, 2012) at the Rex Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets cost $12.

• The Shining (R, 1980) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas with multiple screenings Monday, Oct. 18, through Thursday, Oct. 21.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG, 1993) at the Rex Theatre on Monday, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m.

Tickets cost $12.

The Silence of the Lambs

Fathom Events will hold 30th anniversary screenings of 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs from director Jonathan Demme starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins on Sunday, Oct. 17, and Wednesday, Oct. 20. The film will screen at Cinemark Rockingham Park in Salem at 3 p.m. and Regal Fox Run in Newington at 3 and 7 p.m. on Oct. 17 and at both theaters on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. Get tickets via Fathom at fathomevents.com.

Featured photo: No Time To Die. Courtesy photo.

The Many Saints of Newark (R)

A young Tony Soprano is mentored by Dickie Moltisanti in “this thing of ours” in The Many Saints of Newark, a Sopranos prequel/little fan service treat.

Dickie (Alessandro Nivola) is the father of Christopher (as an adult, Michael Imperioli), who was the guy The Sopranos-era Tony Soprano took under his wing in fatherly fashion. Here, we see Christopher’s father serve that role for Tony (William Ludwig as a kid; Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini, as a teen), particularly when his own father, Johnny Soprano (Jon Bernthal), is away in prison. Tony frequently has an easier time relating to Dickie than to his own mother, Livia (Vera Farmiga, going all out), who is, you’ll recall, A Lot.

By the way, that previous paragraph, with all the “this guy is that guy’s father and also related to this other guy” is how this movie feels from the very beginning. In the movie’s opening scene, which sets up the movie’s narration, there was a piece of information that caused me to press pause and then have a whole “wait, he had a kid?” discussion. The Many Saints of Newark often feels like an extended conversation about second and third cousins, where you keep forgetting who everybody is and how they’re connected.

The movie actually gets going in part with Christopher’s grandfather, Dickie’s father, Hollywood Dick (Ray Liotta) returning from Italy with an extremely young new wife, Giuseppina (Michela Di Rossi). Dickie — who appears to still live in the family home with his own wife, Joanne (Gabriella Piazza) — instantly has the hots for Giuseppina and also there’s all sorts of psychological weirdness about his father saying she’s going to have his second set of children while Dickie and Joanne struggle to conceive their own child and some residual anger from Dickie because of his father’s physical abuse (toward him as a kid, toward his mother and now toward Giuseppina). Dickie, we learn, also has a temper.

Through it all, kid Tony seems to go to great lengths to be around Dickie, whose occupation seems to involve the numbers racket and stolen goods. Tony gets in his own small-time trouble: as a kid he gets kicked out of school for setting up a little-kid numbers racket, as a teen he gets busted for buying a stolen test. But there is part of him that seems to want what somebody at some point calls a civilian life — he plays football, he dreams of college.

I’m not saying I want this but there is a version of this project that isn’t a two-hour movie but a three-season HBO show, where side plots like the ambitions of Giuseppina or everything to do with Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odum Jr.), a man whom we first meet working for Dickie but who wants to strike out on his own, get richer development. McBrayer in particular is an interesting character — initially collecting cash for Dickie but deciding to go out on his own: a numbers-running operation in the Black community controlled by him and not the Italian mob. His story intersects with the Newark riots and real-life gangster Frank Lucas. But as presented here, a lot of his story feels kind of stuffed in. “Here are some ideas” is the feel of McBrayer and Giuseppina’s arcs but then the action of the movie is really centered on Dickie. And, my attention was usually on Tony and his growing into the guy we remember from the TV show and all the familiar names associated with that. You know how the post-credits scene of a superhero movie will show a costumed character or mention a first and last name and you know that you’re supposed to know who this person is and understand their significance? That is sort of how this movie is, but for the whole movie (and I say this as someone who watched the entire run of The Sopranos). As was pointed out to me by my movie night companion, a lot of those “hey, that’s Silvio Dante” or “they just mentioned Hesh” aren’t important for the plot of this specific movie. But because this is a Sopranos property, you can’t help focusing on these elements.

All of that said, this movie was fun to watch, even if I seemed to watch it in 10-minute chunks, pausing for frequent “is that the guy who”-type conversations. There are truly horrifying moments, truly funny moments and some solid bits of acting, including from Farmiga and Gandolfini. And like a family gathering full of third cousins and unplaceable children (a nephew? By marriage? Which marriage to whom?), The Many Saints of Newark feels overstuffed and even overwhelming at times but also familiar and enjoyable to spend time with in this limited setting. The movie displays some quality construction and dialogue and reminds you just what a standout, even after the ensuing decades of peak TV, The Sopranos really was. B-

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content and some nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Alan Taylor with a screenplay by David Chase & Lawrence Konner, The Many Saints of Newark is two hours long and is distributed in theaters by Warner Bros. Pictures and is on HBO Max until Oct. 31.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (PG-13)

The alien symbiote/human goofball partnership that lives inside Eddie Brock accidentally spawns a bigger, redder creature in Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

And, as you may have already heard, there is a mid-credits scene in this movie. On balance, I’d say it’s worth waiting for because you already put on your outside clothes to come to the movie theater anyway and it is a fun little teaser for [redacted].

If you ever watched the late great one-season ABC show Stumptown, you’ll remember the somewhat ratty car that lead character Dex drove — it had a broken tape player that would on-the-nose-ily turn on and it always looked like it was one too-fast turn from coming completely apart. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) feels like the human version of this — just barely keeping himself together. And, in truth, that’s what he’s often doing: just barely keeping Venom, the evil-Spider-Man-looking alien symbiote who lives inside him, from popping out and going on some kind of destructive rampage. Eddie talks back to the pestering Venom voice (that only he can hear) who seems to spend a lot of time asking to eat either people or chocolate, or complaining about Eddie’s inability to get back together with his former fiancee Anne (Michelle Williams), who is now dating Dr. Dan (Reid Scott).

But Venom is useful too. When Eddie interviews serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), it’s Venom who notices some of the drawings on Cletus’ wall and helps Eddie figure out that one of them points to the location of Cletus’ victims’ bodies. This earns Eddie some acclaim — and Cletus’ rage, as the appearance of all the new bodies has the state of California decide to make an exception to its “no more executions” rule just for Cletus. During his final meeting with Eddie, though, Cletus provokes Venom and bites Eddie, getting just enough of that weird alien symbiote-infected blood to grow his own strange creature inside himself, which I think eventually calls itself Carnage.

Unfortunately for Eddie (and everyone else in the city), by the time Cletus/Carnage have broken out of San Quentin, Eddie and Venom have, er, broken up. Eddie doesn’t like how Venom causes thoughtless havoc in Eddie’s life and Venom isn’t cool with how Eddie keeps him from eating human brains (they had bought chickens for Venom to eat but he ended up naming them — Sonny and Cher — and is now too attached).

Cletus and Carnage and Cletus’ long-lost girlfriend Frances (Naomie Harris) — this movie’s villains — are very “meh, whatever” villains. (Ditto a character called Detective Mulligan played by Stephen Graham, who by the end of the movie is less of a character and more just comic book homework.) Is Harrelson appropriately crazy? Sure, he’s pretty good at that kind of character. But I found myself wishing we could just cool it with Cletus and his motivations and his backstory and spend more time with Tom Hardy and his Eddie/Venom duo. Hardy seems to be having a really good time with this/these character/s (Hardy even has a story-by credit). Obviously CGI plays a big part in the look of Venom but the personality seems to come from Hardy letting Eddie be more of a, well, goober and Venom more “immediate reaction of all your worst impulses.” It makes for an overall very watchable, fairly silly — if still quite violent, I was kind of surprised this movie is only a PG-13 — lead character even if everything going on around him is less than thrilling. B-

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some strong language, disturbing material and suggestive references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Andy Serkis (yes that Andy Serkis) with a screenplay by Kelly Marcel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is an hour and 37 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Columbia Pictures.

The Addams Family 2 (PG)

The altogether-ooky family hits the road in The Addams Family 2, a rather underwhelming second entry in this rather underwhelming animated adaptation of the Addams Family.

After preteen Wednesday Addams (voice of Chloë Grace Moretz) gets annoyed with her family for showing up to her science fair, dad Gomez (voice of Oscar Isaac) decides he must yank his daughter back into the fold with a family road trip. Mom Morticia (voice of Charlize Theron) and younger kid Pugsley (voice of Javan Walton) load up the family’s camper (which has kind of a steampunk hearse carriage/iron lung appearance) and set out for three weeks, along with Thing, Lurch (voice of Conrad Vernon), Uncle Fester (voice of Nick Kroll) and occasionally Cousin It (voice of Snoop Dog).

Right before the family leaves, though, a lawyer named Mr. Mustela (voice of Wallace Shawn) shows up to inform the Addamses that Wednesday might have been switched at birth and might not actually be an Addams. They laugh it off at first, thinking it’s just Wednesday trying to get out of the family trip, but Mustela follows the Addams family as they travel across the county.

Is Wednesday really not an Addams or does this lawyer and his story have something to do with Wednesday’s science experiment, which involved briefly giving Uncle Fester the intelligence of a Rubik’s Cube-solving octopus? When the science fair sponsor, Curtis Strange (voice of Bill Hader), asked Wednesday for her research, she turned him down, but he doesn’t seem like the type to accept “no.” Also, maybe Fester’s transformation wasn’t as “brief” as originally thought, since he suddenly has an irresistible urge to be near water and one of his arms is looking very cephalopod-like.

There is an off-kilter oddball energy to the 1990s live-action Addams Family movies that is missing here. These Addamses are spooky, sure, in kind of a Halloween decoration way, and Wednesday is still trying to kill her brother Pugsley in a way that felt a little too murderous to have me rushing to show this to my young elementary-aged kids. But there’s a gleeful weirdness that made those movies something I always end up stopping to watch if I flip past them. Here, the Addams-ness is rather muted beneath a very standard “family appreciating each other” tale.

Now, that same factor — fewer electrocutions and babies with knives — might make it more palatable/less nightmare-inducing for, say 8-year-olds and up (whereas I felt the first movie in this series was maybe for more like 10-year-olds and older). So the mushiness that makes it a less interesting Addams movie probably does make it a better kids’ movie — which, of course, kids in the audience is really the whole point of this movie. And the overall look of the film is fun in the way that a lot of spooky themed stuff is fun. I feel like kids who generally enjoy monsters and scary stuff (but still need their scary stuff to be not too scary) will enjoy this. C+

Rated PG for macabre and rude humor, violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon with a screenplay by Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit and Ben Queen and Susanna Fogel, The Addams Family 2 is an hour and 33 minutes long and distributed by United Artists Releasing. It is in theaters and available via Video On Demand.

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry
amctheatres.com

Cinemark Rockingham Park 12
15 Mall Road, Salem

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• The Witch (R, 2015) screening at The Strand in Dover on Wednesday, Oct .6, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• Night of the Living Dead (1968) screening on Thursday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (R, 2013) screening at The Strand in Dover on Thursday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• 21+ Trivia Night for The Nightmare Before Christmas at Chunky’s in Manchester on Thursday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. Reserve a seat with the purchase of a $5 food voucher.

• The Evil Dead (NC-17, 1981) 40th anniversary screening with intro from Bruce Campbell on Thursday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at AMC Londonderry 10, Lowell Showcase Cinemas and Regal Fox Run Stadium 1 via Fathom Events.

• I’m Your Man (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord, Friday, Oct. 8, through Monday, Oct. 11, at 1, 4 & 7 p.m.

• Lamb (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord, Friday, Oct. 8, through Monday, Oct. 11, at 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.

• The Conjuring (R, 2013) screening at The Strand in Dover on Friday, Oct. 8, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $10.

• Maleficent (PG, 2014) screening at The Strand in Dover on Saturday, Oct. 9,2 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• The Nowhere Inn (R, 2021) screening at The Music Hall in Portsmouth on Saturday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15.

• Hocus Pocus (PG, 1993) screening at The Strand in Dover on Sunday, Oct.10, 2 p.m. Tickets cost $6.

• The White Tiger (1923), a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, at Wilton Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 10, at 2 p.m. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• Scream (R, 1996) on Sunday, Oct. 10, at 3 p.m. at Cinemark Rockingham Park, AMC Methuen and Regal Fox Run and at 7 p.m. at AMC Methuen and Regal Fox Run. Also screening Monday, Oct. 11, at 7 p.m. on Cinemark Rockingham Park, Regal Fox Run and AMC Methuen. All via Fathom Events.

Featured photo: Dear Evan Hansen. Courtesy photo.

Dear Evan Hansen (PG-13)

An anxiety-filled teenager stumbles into a family’s tragedy in Dear Evan Hansen, a film adaptation of the Broadway musical.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt, who originated the role in the stage musical) is starting his senior year of high school with an arm cast, prescriptions to help him manage his anxiety and depression and an assignment from his therapist to write himself a daily letter of affirmation. “Dear Evan Hansen,” he writes himself in the high school library. He can’t seem to find the life-affirming words to say to himself and instead pens a letter wondering if he matters at all, throwing in a mention of Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), a girl he’s long liked from a far. When he goes to print it out, though, her brother Connor (Colton Ryan) gets ahold of it first. Connor, an angry kid who briefly has a friendly-ish conversation with Evan before he finds the letter, storms off, thinking the letter is just meant to provoke him.

As Evan explains nervously to Jared (Nik Dodani), his one sort-of friend (we’re just family friends, Jared reminds him), he’s afraid Connor will publish his letter online. But instead, he’s called to the principal’s office, where Evan’s mom, Cynthia (Amy Adams), and stepdad, Larry (Danny Pino), ask him about what they assume is his friendship with Connor. Evan very weakly attempts to explain his whole therapist assignment situation but then Cynthia explains that the “Dear Evan Hansen” note is Connor’s last words because he has died by suicide. Evan ends up accepting a dinner invitation to Connor’s family’s house and, unable to bring himself to tell this grieving family that Connor didn’t write the letter, he makes up memories of a friendship between himself and Connor.

This friendship not only brings him into this family — a wealthy, in his mind idyllic version of a family compared to his absent dad and caring but long-hours-working mother, Heidi (Julianne Moore) — and closer to Zoe but wins him support from the kids at school, including high achiever Alana (Amandla Stenberg), who confides in Evan that she too struggles with mental health issues. As Evan is pulled more into these relationships, he finds himself able to deliver, to others at least, the hopeful message that he and, as he learns, other teens need to hear.

I know that time and Joss Whedon have made this comparison uncool, but during the first half of this movie especially I found myself thinking that the “Earshot” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had delivered the basic message of this movie so much cleaner and more succinctly. The “every single person … is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own” speech from that 1999 episode (which, if it makes it better, was written by Jane Espenson, according to Wikipedia) delivered to one high schooler by another gets to what I feel like this movie wants to convey. That, and that you, the “you” of all of teenagerdom, are not alone, which this movie conveys through at least two or three songs.

Here, these messages are delivered often by or to or around Ben Platt — and, look, it’s a musical, I can suspend disbelief regarding a lot of things, including an actor’s age (which has been a subject of internet chatter since the trailer was released). But Platt isn’t just about a decade older than the character he’s playing, he reads as considerably older, both older than his character and older than the other “kids” in the “high school.” In reality, he isn’t all that much older than most of the other main teen-playing actors, but his whole vibe creates something different in this character, something more predatory and, frankly, creepy than what seems to be intended, which, I think at least based on the songs, is more a kid who is sad and lost and so lacking in confidence that he sort of falls into something he doesn’t understand the harm of and can’t handle. I never felt entirely certain who I was supposed to root for, and if always thinking Evan Hansen was awful is what I’m supposed to feel then he makes for a very unappealing central character.

So there’s all that, creating a real “yeesh” in the middle of the movie that I could never quite get away from. But there are also some nice elements here. Moore and Adams both give real depth to their characters as moms dealing with sons they don’t know how to help. Their difficulties, their grief and frustrations are well-portrayed, even though the movie doesn’t give them a whole lot of independent character development. I also like how Dever (who has pretty much been excellent in everything I’ve seen her in) is able to give us the struggle of Zoe to reconcile the crappy parts of her relationship with her brother with her memories of them as kids.

While I don’t think I’ll be shelling out for the cast album, Dear Evan Hansen has some nice songs, that work in the moment. I didn’t love all of the choreography and camera work here, but it was interesting and it was able to break free from the “stuck on the stage”-iness that can hamper some musicals.

With its premise that I feel like it doesn’t entirely do justice to and its whole “this could easily be a horror movie” thing, Dear Evan Hansen is pretty solidly not for me. But I could see a world in which fans of the musical (of which there clearly are plenty; it was nominated for multiple Tonys, according to Wikipedia) might enjoy this adaptation. C

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide (which, for real-world help: the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255), brief strong language and some suggestive references. Directed by Stephen Chbosky with a screenplay by Steven Levenson (from the stage play with music and lyrics by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek and book by Steven Levenson), Dear Evan Hansen is two hours and 17 minutes long (and oh boy is it ever) and is distributed in theaters only at the moment by Universal Studios.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (PG-13)

The life of the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker gets the biopic treatment in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a feature film that shares that title with a 2000 documentary about Bakker (who by then was Tammy Faye Messner).

I forgot, until rewatching the trailer for that doc (available for rent or purchase), how deeply weird it could be, with its puppets reading title cards and its talking head interviews with Tammy herself. Tammy Faye died in 2007 and really by that point did seem like someone whose life and on-screen personality were so much bigger and stranger than the late 1980s collapse of the TV evangelist network she fronted with her then-husband Jim Bakker.

Here we much more specifically stick to Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) from roughly the early 1960s, when she first met Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) at bible college, through the end of their religious entertainment and real estate empire. After an initial glimpse at child Tammy Faye, eager to be a part of the church community where her mother, Rachel (Cherry Jones), played piano, we see maybe-20-ish Tammy become instantly attracted to Jim, whom she watches honing his tight five on the prosperity gospel in class. The teacher is not impressed by his “God wants you to be rich” shtick but it fits with Tammy’s “just spreadin’ joy” approach to religion. The two quickly get married and decide to hit the road as traveling preachers, with Tammy finding a crowd-pleasing gimmick in puppetry.

Their show, with its kid-grabbing puppets and parent-captivating humor and messages, is exactly the kind of four-quadrant entertainment that Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) is looking for at his Christian Broadcasting Network. The couple goes to work for him and makes a nice living — but Robertson’s living is nicer, Bakker realizes. Tammy meanwhile is not thrilled with how pregnancy and a new baby has pushed her off the air. They decided to go it on their own, starting their Praise The Lord network and earning big off the contributions of their audience.

But there is no “enough” for Jim, whom the movie shows constantly trying to expand the PTL’s reach with an amusement park and real estate. Along the way, Tammy doesn’t realize (or maybe has decided not to realize) the financial troubles the couple is getting themselves deeper and deeper into but she does realize that there are serious troubles in her marriage.

This movie seems to have one strongly held belief and that is that Jim Bakker is a real jerk. The movie paints him as manipulating and gaslighting Tammy Faye, shows him being cruel to her and shows him leeching off her talent to bolster his house-of-cards empire. Is Tammy an earnest dupe who doesn’t understand her husband’s dodgy business dealings? Is she sort of a willing dupe who doesn’t understand because she doesn’t want to understand? Is she a True Believer who is on a mission from God? Is “True Believer” another bit of stagecraft, like the sparkly clothes and the loud makeup, that she puts on because it gains her affection? I’m not really sure where the movie comes down on all of these issues or what it wants us to come away believing about her. I feel like it presents us sort of an appetizer sampler of Tammy Faye’s life and who she is and lets us pick whether we think the jalapeño poppers of “making up for childhood hurts” or the mozzarella sticks of “a natural-born performer whose skills didn’t have a lot of outlets in the deeply religious mid-century rural South” are the true centerpiece of the dish.

This movie feels like it was constructed by figuring out the makeup and costumes first, with everything else built off that. Everybody looks and sounds the part (or enough of the part) that you can believe who they are. But I didn’t get a sense that the movie went much deeper than that. The Eyes of Tammy Faye absolutely sells us on the idea that Tammy Faye is deserving of a biopic, but doesn’t offer a clear picture of who it thinks she is. B-

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and drug abuse, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Michael Showalter with a screenplay by Abe Slyvia, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is two hours and six minutes long and distributed by 20th Century Studios in theaters.

Copshop (R)

A police officer at a lonely Nevada police station finds herself in the middle of a shootout in Copshop, the dusty, 1970s-vibed Western you want when you want some popcorn and escapism.

Officer Val Young (Alexis Louder — ladies and gentlemen, meet action movies’ newest badass) gets punched breaking up a rowdy wedding party fight at a local casino and arrests the puncher, Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo), a man who wasn’t actually part of the wedding. And, as Young figures out pretty quickly, he wanted to get arrested. Perhaps he figured even the bored, shifty and generally annoyed officers at this small station were safer company than the likes of Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), a man also arrested that night. Bob appears to be falling down drunk — but of course that’s just his way of getting into the same small cell block as Teddy. Though locked up, Bob proves pretty quickly that he can still get to Teddy. But they both learn that Bob wasn’t the only person hired to take Teddy out. But, whatever the workplace politics of Teddy, Bob and their criminal bosses, no-nonsense Val isn’t having any of it.

Everything in this movie feels very intentional. The movie appears to be set in roughly the now but it plays with what feels like a throwback sensibility — a little bit 1970s stylized police and Western tales, a little bit 1990s indie crime tales with a violent sense of humor. And it manages to do this — and play with some very stylized camera shots — without tipping into Quentin Tarantino territory.

This movie is also very intentionally (maybe even impeccably?) cast. Everyone brings a kind of griminess to their characters — none more so, of course, than Butler, whom I have seen deservedly praised in other reviews for his work here. His Bob Viddick is both a precise and professional assassin and kind of a sweaty, hairy mess and it all works great. And then there is Louder, who just leaps off the screen as the confident but capable enough to justify the confidence young officer. Get this woman a John Wick-style franchise!

Copshop feels like real effortless fun, like exactly the kind of movie you’re hoping for when you go to a midday matinee, as I did in the reopened and newly named Apple Cinemas in Hooksett (which is the new owner of the old Cinemagic; both the Hooksett and Merrimack locations are now back in operation). Improbable shootouts and the nuttiness of a not-the-good-guy Gerard Butler performance — now this is why you go to the movies. B

Rated R for strong/bloody violence and pervasive language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Joe Carnahan with a screenplay by Kurt McLeod and Joe Carnahan, Copshop is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed by Open Road Films. It is screening in theaters.

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry
amctheatres.com

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Cinemark Rockingham Park 12
15 Mall Road, Salem

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

O’neil Cinemas at Brickyard Square
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Shows

• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (PG-13, 1986) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas in Epping with multiple daily screenings on Thursday, Sept. 30.

• Composer Amy Beach, a documentary about the NH composer, screened at Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Thursday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $12.

• 21+ Trivia Night for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Chunky’s in Manchester on Thursday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 p.m. Reserve a seat with the purchase of a $5 food voucher.

• The Lost Leonardo (PG-13, 2021) screening Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 4 & 7 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 2, at 5:30 & 8:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (PG-13. 2021) Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30, 3:30 & 6:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Blue Bayou (R, 2021) Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 1 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 2, at 2:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) double-featuring on Saturday, Oct. 2, at 1 p.m. at AMC Londonderry, Cinemark Rockingham Park 12 and Regal Fox Run Stadium 15 via Fathom Events.

• National Theatre Live Follies, a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• Week of Witches see films daily at The Strand in Dover Sunday, Oct. 3, through Sunday, Oct. 10. One ticket to all 8 films costs $25.

• Spirited Away (PG, 2001) at Cinemark Rockingham Park, AMC Methuen 20 and Lowell Cinema Showcase on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 3 p.m. (dubbed); Monday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. (subtitled), and Wednesday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. (dubbed) via Fathom Events.

Featured photo: Dear Evan Hansen. Courtesy photo.