Category: Film Reviews by Amy

On the Rocks (R)

Nothing happens — but nothing with a Sofia Coppola laid-back charm — in the light dramedy On the Rocks, a movie written and directed by Coppola. Dean (Marlon Wayans) comes home from a business trip, climbs into bed and starts kissing Laura (Rashida Jones). It’s a normal husband/wife moment until she says “hi”and he sort of startles awake a little, says something like “oh” and then collapses asleep. What, Laura wonders, did that mean? Did he not know where he was, not know who he was kissing, not want to be kissing her?
It’s the sort of thing that you might laugh about over breakfast unless, like Laura, you’re already in something of a rut — caught in the repetitive tasks of taking care of their kids and apartment and not making any headway on a book she’s trying to write. And Dean has started a new business where he works all the time and has a hot coworker, Fiona (Jessica Henwick). Then the odd little moment becomes a “sign.”
Both the exact right and exact wrong person to talk this over with is Felix (Bill Murray), Laura’s father. He loves her and says the stuff Laura probably needs to be reminded of — that she’s great, that Dean is lucky to have her, etc. But he also has some not-great history in the fidelity-to-Laura’s-mom department (which Laura has clearly not gotten over) and he enthusiastically embraces the “what’s up with Dean” mystery as sort of a father-daughter project. He suggests tailing Dean and spying on Dean in a variety of ways and while Laura doesn’t 100 percent support the idea she doesn’t completely shut it down, either.
Maybe that all sounds like “something” but it is, like the best Seinfeld plots, nothing, really, in the wider scheme of these characters and this story. Even the “is Dean cheating?” central question feels rather low stakes the way the movie presents it.
There are lots of nice little details in this movie: Laura can’t seem to connect with Dean so she defaults to talking about kid stuff, there is never not a series of things on the floor she feels obligated to pick up, she makes extremely well-labeled folders during a rare quiet moment at her desk in lieu of writing (ahh, trivial organization as a form of procrastination — it accomplishes nothing but it feels so good). This isn’t some momentous examination of romantic turmoil or familial relationships. It’s a collection of little, well-realized moments performed (primarily) by two skilled actors: Jones, who is great at being a person caught in a funk but still capable of being a loving and empathetic person, and Murray, who appears to be having fun. “Dad-ness plus martini” is how I would describe his character. He clearly has bigger flaws — Murray gives us a person who can be light and charming and also exasperating and unknowingly hurtful all in the same scene — but the movie isn’t here to do a deep dive into them.
This movie is awash in crisp-looking cocktails and I sort of feel like a piney gin and tonic is what this movie basically is: refreshing, not too serious, classic and with just the right amount of bittersweetness. B
Rated R for some language/sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, On the Rocks is an hour and 36 minutes long and distributed by A24. It is available on Apple TV+.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (R)

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat returns to America just in time for, you know, All This in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the semi-scripted, candid camera sequel to his 2006 film.
As you may have heard, this movie features Rudy Giuliani, who basically walks himself into this elaborate prank for no good reason. Mike Pence also delivers a brief (unintended) cameo during what is apparently a real scene from the February 2020 CPAC event (the Conservative Political Action Conference). News reports from the event suggest that what happens in the film more or less did occur: Borat (Baron Cohen) dressed in a Trump costume and brought his 15-year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova, who is really 24 years old according to media reports and who is getting some Oscar talk? What, 2020?) to give as a gift to Pence. Photos on several news sites show a Trump-figure being marched out of the hall by security while Pence speaks — and, in this movie, we even get clips of Pence’s speech, such as when he talks about how great America is doing at keeping the coronavirus at bay, for extra surrealness.
This gag is part of this movie’s necessarily more plot-heavy story than what I remember in the original film; as is displayed, Borat can’t walk around the U.S. without people trying to get selfies and hear him say “my wife.” So we get a framework that involves Kazakhstan’s leader attempting to get into Trump’s circle of strongman besties by giving Pence a present, originally a monkey but when he doesn’t make it to the U.S. alive, the gift becomes Tutar, the teenage daughter that the long-imprisoned Borat recently reconnected with. Despite Borat’s attempts to shoo her away, Tutar follows Borat to America. When Borat fails at giving Tutar to Pence, Borat decides to try to give her to Giuliani. Along the way are a series of “real” scenes — from interviews to less formal interactions — that feature a lot of people smothering smiles and/or horror in reaction to Tutar (whose initial ambition is to have a fancy “wife cage”) and Borat in a variety of disguises.
I kinda want an oral history for the making of this movie, which seemed to start in the pre-Covid world but ends up deep in 2020 with all the expected mess (internet conspiracies, anti-mask rallies and of course, so very much racism). Some of these scenes are painfully cringeworthy — probably a sign that just in general I’m not one for candid-prank-style entertainment. But there is also just a sense that people were more aware of the gag this time around, though to what degree is unclear — oftentimes the look on people’s faces suggests they know something is up even if they don’t know exactly what. (I don’t know if that makes what happens in some scenes better or worse. Are people hamming it up for a camera they know is there? Or showing their true selves? Or, again, is this whole thing just Not For Me at this point in 2020?)
I especially wanted to know more about Borat’s interaction with the woman to whom the movie is dedicated, Judith Dim Evans, who appears in the movie but has since passed away and whose family sued over the appearance (though the lawsuit has been withdrawn and the case dismissed, according to Hollywood news sites Deadline and Variety). Evans meets a deeply offensively costumed Borat in a synagogue and ends up hugging him (she comes across as kindness personified). There is a website about her story — she was a Holocaust survivor and an educator — which was apparently put up by this movie’s producers, according to Vulture.com. Vulture and Deadline report that after filming Baron Cohen broke character (or had crew members break character) to explain the point of the bit (which, though very Borat-ily done, is an effort to combat Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism). Though I get that it’s not the point of what Baron Cohen is doing, I wish we could have seen some of this post-filming interaction. (Johnny Knoxville included some of the “breaking character” moments in the closing credits of his candid camera-ish Bad Grandpa, which made that endeavor feel more comfortable to me, the viewer. I suspect providing that kind of emotional closure is exactly why Baron Cohen doesn’t include these moments — and, as far as I can tell from news reports, doesn’t tend to ever break character.)
There are funny elements here. For me, the funnier parts were the scripted scenes between Borat and Tutar. While I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around any award chatter for Bakalova, she is a solid component of this film — game and giving a genuine performance of her character. I don’t entirely know what to make of this film or that its final message is the dedication to Evans and urging the audience to vote. I feel like Baron Cohen has things, possibly very earnest things, he really wants to say but I’m not sure this mid-aughts character is the clearest or even the funniest way to do it. B-
Rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jason Woliner with a screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Dan Swimer & Peter Baynham & Erica Rivinoja &Dan Mazer & Jena Friedman & Lee Kern, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (full title) is an hour and 35 minutes long and distributed by Amazon Studios via Amazon Prime.

Featured photo: On The Rocks (R) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (R)

Rebecca (PG-13 )

The beautiful Armie Hammer and beautiful Lily James wear some beautiful clothes in the gothic romance/psychological thriller Rebecca.

Lily James’ character, introduced before she gets married but only ever called Mrs. de Winter, is a lady’s companion in what I’m pretty sure is late 1930s-ish rich people Europe, working for the unpleasant (but fabulous) Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd, who seems like she is having the super bestest of best times and it’s great). She meets Maxim de Winter (Hammer), a recently widowed rich dude with an excellent house who is The Talk of the rich people hotel in rich people Europe. Luckily for the future Mrs. dW, Mrs. VH comes down with some kind of stomach illness and she gets a few days to herself to flit around with Max, who is Armie Hammer-ishly charming and handsome but occasionally gets all silent and grim when anybody mentions his dead wife, Rebecca, whose name is always said with extra dramatic emphasis and sort of the same energy as the way you make “boo-ooo-ooo” ghost noises when reading a spooky tale or seeing a Halloween-themed cereal. Booobecca’s death is still quite a sore subject for Max so he doesn’t like to talk about it or discuss pertinent information about the whole situation that might be necessary for Lily James when she agrees to become his new wife and return with him to Manderley, his family’s large spooky estate.

When they arrive, the new Mrs. de Winter meets the “early series Downton Abbey”-sizedstaff, which is led by Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), the housekeeper and shade-master who was also the lifelong servant for and companion of the late Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers haaaaates the new Mrs. de Winter with the stoniest, Britishest of hatreds and I also feel like Thomas was having fun with some of her scenes, at least I really hope so. Near the end of the movie she gets a nice moment that felt like it was made for the purpose of having “for your awards consideration” flashing in a scroll underneath it and this is an odd year so, even though Rebecca is a very meh movie, maybe she’s got a shot?

As James’ character sort of bumbles around the new house, always bumping into some thing that reminds people of Rebecca, she tries to figure out just what the heck was up about the first Mrs. de Winter and ascertain whether she’ll ever live up to her reputation, especially to the still sulky Max. Because our own insecurities are our worst demons (especially when they get a little extra shine thanks to some gaslighting), the dead Rebecca slowly drives the living Mrs. de Winter mad.

I feel like I’ve made that all sound a lot more exciting than it is.

This movie is very pretty — pretty people, pretty setting and pretty pretty clothes that I would definitely be interested in purchasing, if, say, Modcloth wanted to start a movie tie-in line. But I feel like this adaptation doesn’t do much with all of its pretty and prettily-gothic elements. It is watchable but I suspect that if I weren’t watching this in the midmorning while actually drinking coffee, it would also be pretty fall-asleep-to-able as well. I don’t need a wacky new take on the story but I do need some energy, some passion between Hammer and James, or some more insight into James’ character’s motivations, something to explain why James’ character doesn’t just put her suitcase in a wheelbarrow and hoof it to the nearest train station. B-

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content, partial nudity, thematic elements and smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Ben Wheatley with a screenplay by Jane Goldman and Joe Shrapnel & Anna Waterhouse (from the novel by Daphne Du Maurier), Rebecca is two hours and one minute long and distributed by Netflix.

The Witches (PG)

Anne Hathaway hams it up as a wide-mouthed, claw-handed witch in The Witches, a new adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel.

Charlie (Jahzir Bruno with an adult narration by Chris Rock) goes to live with his grandma (Octavia Spencer) when he is 8 years old and his parents are killed in a car crash. Though initially quite traumatized, he soon starts to perk up thanks to his grandma’s general kindness, good cooking and a pet mouse she buys him.

One day at the store, he meets a hissing woman with a snake up her sleeve, a raspy voice and a mouth that seems bigger than normal. That, his grandma tells him later when he describes the scene, is a witch. She knows all about witches, having seen one turn her best friend into a chicken when she was a little girl. Now the grandma knows how to use herbs and remedies to ward off the hexes of witches. Not that she wants to tangle with one. When she realizes that Charlie’s tale means witches are in town, she and Charlie run to hide in a fancy hotel where her cousin works.

But the hotel turns out to be a bad place to hide. A coven of witches is having a convention there, led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway), whose witch feet are extra creepy (one toe with a very long nail), claw-like hands are extra twisted (and can even extend) and whose bald head is covered in pustules from the dreaded witch affliction wig rash. Charlie happens upon their meeting and hides (though he can’t hide his smell; all children have a dog-poop-like odor to witches, his grandma says) and happens to see them turn Bruno (Codie-Lei Eastick), an English boy Charlie had befriended, into a mouse. The witches plan to turn all children into mice, they say, and soon it’s up to Charlie, Bruno, Charlie’s pet mouse Daisy (voice of Kristin Chenoweth) and grandma to stop them.

Guillermo del Toro has a writing credit here (along with director Robert Zemeckis and Black-ish/Grown-ish/Mixed-ish creator Kenya Barris), which perhaps explains some of the super creepy creature elements of the witches and the people-to-mice transformations that take place. This movie feels sort of borderline for younger elementary kids, depending on their tolerance for creepy stuff. Common Sense Media rates it 9+; I would say at least 9, as much for the more real-world elements of life and death (Charlie is in the car when his parents die, which feels very heavy for this magic-y tale) as for the supernatural elements.

A strong strain of sweetness also runs through the movie: grandma’s unconditional love for Charlie, a plucky quest by kids to save other kids. I hope the only-48-year-old Octavia Spencer isn’t pegged as “grandma” forever now but she’s a perfect fairy tale grandma here, the right mix of witch-fighting abilities and belief in her grandson. Spencer also seems like she’s enjoying herself and feels like she’s offering genuine emotion, even in scenes where she’s probably acting versus a tennis ball that will later become a CGI mouse character.

Stanley Tucci feels like an oddly big name for his relatively small role as Mr. Stringer, the hotel manager. He does seem to be having fun with his physical-comedy-heavy character whose mostly just reacts to craziness involving the children-mice or the Grand High Witch’s diva demands.

Nobody, of course, is having more fun than Hathaway, who might be having even more fun than she seemed to be having in Ocean’s 8. Here, she is full Cruella de Vil, doing all sorts of crazy things to her “R”s in an accent that is German? Transylvanian? Who knows? She wears delightfully crazy clothes, even crazier wigs, some great makeup and shoes that would probably literally kill you if you had to wear them for more than five minutes (they’re like if a stiletto had a clown shoe ancestor). This is so much her show and she stands in the spotlight and projects to the back row.

The Witches feels like the sort of thing an adult might misjudge, show to a kid who is too young and cause a few nightmare-filled nights, but for the right age (tween?) this ultimately goodhearted movie might be the right blend of kid-adventure and spooky fantasy. B

Rated PG for scary images/moments, language and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Robert Zemeckis with a screenplay by Robert Zemeckis & Kenya Bar and Guillermo del Toro (which is a little bit of an unexpected combination but also awesome and here’s hoping they do something else together) based on a book of the same name by Roald Dahl, The Witches is an hour and 46 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. It is available on HBO Max.

Featured photo: Rebecca. The Witches

Aaron Sorkin mixes a courtroom drama with the politics of the late 1960s in The Trial of the Chicago 7, a movie about that real-life case that is basically what you think it will be based on those ingredients.

Most of the movie takes place in 1969 during the trial itself with flashbacks to the events at the Democratic convention in 1968 that led to the indictment of eight men for conspiracy and other charges related to clashes between protesters and police. Those men are, roughly in order of movie importance: Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Abby Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) and, serving almost just as comic relief here, John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins). During the trial, Seale’s case is severed from the group’s and a mistrial is declared for him on those charges; in the movie (though not exactly so in real life, according to assorted “what’s fact or fiction” articles about this movie) this comes in part because the U.S. Attorney leading the case, Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is appalled by Judge Julius Hoffman’s (Frank Langella) racist and violent treatment of Seale. The reluctant antagonist with a country-over-party sense of decency may be dramatic license but it definitely feels on-brand for Aaron Sorkin.

The other seven men have as their lawyers Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman) and William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance). And let’s stop right here to talk about this year’s Oscar race (if there are, in fact, Oscars for 2020). I feel like any discussion of this movie and its Oscar chances has to build its case on Mark Rylance playing what feels like another familiar Sorkin character: the wise, world-weary man who nonetheless has been able to hang on to his sense of justice and morality. Those characters can be a lot but Rylance is able to make him a real person, a professional doing a job but also a person fighting for a set of principles and doing so in the real world. I don’t know how well he brings to life the real person that was William Kuntsler — I admit I know of most of these people in an extremely second-hand fashion. But Rylance brings to life a real person.

I feel like the other big performances here will be Cohen and Redmayne and to a lesser degree Lynch and Strong. My favorite of the group might be Lynch. Cohen and Strong are, I think, supposed to be the likeable showmen hiding razor-sharp minds, and Redmayne plays an earnest goodie-two-shoes who is nonetheless willing to put all on the line. And it’s all perfectly fine, was my response. It’s all acceptable, above average even, but more stagey than Rylance or Lynch.

Sorkin, who writes and directs here, knows how to construct a good courtroom scene, he of “you can’t handle the truth” fame. We get a couple of courtroom fireworks moments that work even when they verge on the hokey. He also does, as he often does, a good job constructing compelling quiet-conversation-between-two-characters scenes. He has always been good at having characters mix the on-task business of whatever’s happening in a plot with just shooting the breeze and displaying personality, and we get some of that here, particularly in scenes with Rylance or with scenes between Cohen and Strong and Redmayne and Sharp.

There are less successful scenes where characters speechify at each other, explaining “the Left” or “the War” or whatever to each other, and these scenes left me feeling like I needed a break.

Other Sorkin things that drove me a little nuts: women! Everything to do with the (all minor) female characters feels like he just sprinkled some West Wing secretaries throughout the movie. Look, I know this is history and you can’t just fan-fiction Ruth Bader Ginsburg into the trial and so your options are limited for how to have female characters. But still. This approach, with savvy helpmates always around for a quip and some sympathy, just wore me out.

If I had to zero in on the point of this movie for Sorkin, it would be in a line said by Abby Hoffman: “I think the institutions of our democracy are wonderful things that right now are populated by some terrible people.” This and a broad-survey look at that particular fight against that particular generation’s “terrible people” in the “institutions of our democracy” are as close as Sorkin gets to making any kind of statement about the modern era, which is also fine. On balance, if you enjoy history at all or Sorkin at all (even if you’re more of a fair-weather Sorkin fan), I think The Trial of the Chicago 7 is worth a watch — especially since it’s on Netflix and no extra effort to seek it out. B

Rated R for language throughout, some violence, bloody images and drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is two hours and nine minutes long and is available on Netflix.

The 40-Year-Old Version (R)

A nearly 40-year-old playwright feels stuck in her career and is facing life turmoil in The 40-Year-Old Version, a delightful comedy on Netflix.

Radha (Radha Blank, who also wrote and directed this movie) won a playwrights’ “30 under 30” award — but that was more than a decade ago. Now she’s pushing 40 and still struggling to “make it,” paying the bills by teaching a play-writing class to teens. She begs her best friend and agent Archie (Peter Kim) to get her most recent play, Harlem Ave., a shot at being produced by someone who will pay serious money. He gets her an invitation to a party to meet with J. Whitman (Reed Birney), a producer with cash but with a history of preferring stories that are what Radha calls “poverty porn.”

While Archie struggles to foster a Whitman/Radha partnership after their initial bumpy meeting — things take a turn when Whitman suggests Radha write his planned Harriet Tubman musical — a creatively wrung-out Radha considers returning to her teenage writing roots: hip-hop. She finds D (Oswin Benjamin) to make the beats to go with her lyrics and records a track, hoping to build the project into a mix tape. She might be hesitant, a bit rusty, but Radha clearly gets something from working on rhymes that she isn’t getting from her other work. D sees something special in her work and invites her to join in at an open-mic night. He also, a-hem, sees something special in her and while Radha clearly feels their age difference (he’s 26), she is also drawn to this quiet artist.

We see Radha blossom with rap; it seems to give her a way to express her frustrations and feelings that she can’t do in her other jobs. But she struggles with the urge to “stay in my lane” as she explains at one point. There is money and opportunity in letting J. Whitman and the white director he picks essentially gentrify her Black-characters-focused play about Harlem. But the rawer, more honest stories she tells in her lyrics are not a path to career stability — or even a clear path to career fulfillment, as we see Radha doubt herself even with this medium she enjoys.

And through all of this, we see her avoid calls from her brother who is cleaning out their mother’s apartment. Herself an artist, Radha’s mother recently died and clearly Radha is still figuring out how to handle this.

This movie is deeply charming. Without reminding me of any specific film, it gave me serious mid-1990s indie movie vibes. Like some of those movies, this one has occasional rough edges — but not many, and the overall tight focus of the story and understanding of its central character makes up for any flaws. The 40-Year-Old Version, with its scenes of walking and talking and its central character filled with relatable frustration and weary humor, is lovely. This movie is full of nice detail-moments that help build the real world of who Radha is and what it means to her to be almost 40.

The way we see Radha — presented as someone who is smart and talented but also grieving and struggling — work through this life rut is really engaging. Radha Blank, the real-life actress, is a magnetic person who can convey a lot with just her face (a few times she looks directly at the camera and the moments are not just nice comic beats but also create a real kinship with the viewer). She makes Radha, the character, feel like a fully formed real person, which makes her difficulties and her moments of happiness hit harder. A-

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content, some drug use and brief nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Radha Blank, The 40-Year-Old Version is two hours and four minutes long and distributed on Netflix.

Ava (R)

A lady assassin dealing with personal issues must keep herself from becoming the next target in Ava, a pretty amazing trainwreck of a movie.

Ava (Jessica Chastain) is an assassin who wears wigs and does some very stagey flirting to try to put her subjects at ease and then kills them totally professionally — she can make it look like an accident or natural causes or whatever because she is That Good. Except that she has developed this little quirk where she talks to them first, asks them why they think somebody wants them dead, what they did wrong.

I’m going to spoil something right here: I thought that maybe this was going to be a whole long-game thing where she, a cog in the murder machine, was gathering evidence that she’d eventually use for something — power, a way out of The Life, something like that. Nope! It’s just a dumb character element that is supposed to show, I guess, that she’s fraying around the edges, psychologically, and that even though she’s a professional hit woman she needs to believe there’s some kind of morality to what she’s doing. But, whatever the intention, it really just makes her seem like maybe she got this job yesterday.

The big boss at MurderCorp (not really its name, sadly), Simon (Colin Farrell), is not cool with her being so chatty. He tells middle-manager Duke (John Malkovich, taking this stuff a little more seriously than it needs to be taken) to get her in line but we know, because we’ve seen TV and movies before, that Simon has already decided to off-board her from the organization and has planned an exit package that involves getting her killed during her next job.

But Ava is a real crackerjack at killing henchmen so she survives. Duke tells her to take some time off so she heads to Boston to reconnect with her family: her angry younger sister Judy (Jess Weixler), her angry younger sister’s boyfriend/Ava’s ex Michael (Common) and her mom, with whom she has a prickly relationship, Bobbi (Geena Davis). Ava is also dealing with the struggle to stay sober — she had struggles with drugs and alcohol — which the movie doesn’t really know how to deal with and just kind of throws into a scene when it needs to serious-up a situation. Also, Ava has some sort of past with a lady gangster-type called Toni (Joan Chen) — she was a mentor? A buddy? An employer? — and the movie super doesn’t know what to do with that. I think Ava just shoves that plot line in so that Chastain and Common can be in a fight scene together.

Ava has the building blocks of a decent action movie: a solid cast, a basically workable story in the whole assassin dealing with Stuff both personal and professional, some solid ideas for action set pieces. And yet this movie feels like, in every scene, with every wonky acting choice or stilted bit of dialogue, everybody involved got together and said “what are the worst choices we could make here” and then they did that, went in those bafflingly bad directions. Even the score is weird and terrible — it feels like a low-budget 1980s action TV show but in, like, a bad way (versus, say, the series Cobra Kai, which also uses 1980s action TV show music and it’s awesome).

When thinking about this movie, I keep wanting to call it Anna, which is the name of a different dumb, lady-assasin action movie (from 2019). But that movie knows what it is. It leans in to its accents and improbable fight scenes and general goofiness. Ava could have been that too, expect, yikes, is it trying to say something about addiction? No, movie, you are not the movie for that. This is not the sort of movie where we need to take anything or anyone seriously. This is the sort of movie where everybody should be having so much fun it doesn’t matter when elements don’t make sense.

All that said, this movie is basically what I set out for when I decided to watch it: a no-effort action movie where Jessica Chastain beats people up. So I guess, until this movie ends up on some place like Neftlix where watching it costs no additional effort or money, the question is, is it worth the $6.99 rental fee? No, but if you ever see it available for 99 cents and have absolutely nothing else to do … maybe? C-

Rated R for violence and language throughout, and brief sexual material, according to the MPA on film ratings.com. Directed by Tate Taylor with a screenplay by Matthew Newton, Ava is an hour and 36 minutes long and distributed by Vertical Entertainment. It is available for rent.

Vampires vs. the Bronx (PG-13)

A group of young teens must fight a coven of real estate developers who are also vampires in Vampires vs. Bronx, a cute action/comedy/horror movie.

Miguel (Jaden Michael), Bobby (Gerald Jones III) and Luis (Gregory Diaz IV) basically grew up hanging out at the neighborhood bodega run by Tony (The Kid Mero) in the Bronx. Now Tony’s landlord is trying to raise the rent as area building- and business-owners are selling out to a real estate firm called Murnau (a name that drove me nuts until some Googling reminded me that it’s the last name of the director of 1922’s Nosferatu). In come the people with the canvas bags and the kale and the expensive lattes and out go the neighborhood stalwarts — like the nail salon run by Becky (Zoe Saldana), whom we meet in the movie’s opening scenes. Miguel tries at least to save the bodega with a block party to raise money to pay for the rent increase.

While biking through the neighborhood hanging up signs for the party, he witnesses one of the people from a Murnau property kill a guy from the neighborhood — well, first put him in a trance and then lift him up in the air as he drains the man of his blood. Vampires, Miguel tells Tony and his friends, Murnau isn’t just a group of real estate developers, they’re also vampires! The kids don’t completely believe him but they study up on vampire lore with help from the movie Blade and set out to prove that the undead walk (and gentrify) among us.

Though I’d definitely peg this at PG-13 and there is a fair amount of death and threatening of children in this movie (Miguel and his friends are teens I guess but read as, like, 10-year-olds) Vampires vs. the Bronx is very cute. There’s a plucky “save the community!” spirit to both Miguel’s quest to save the bodega and keep his neighborhood together and to his quest to find and defeat the vampires. The movie has a light touch even when it’s making a serious point, and is funny and smart (smart all the way around — in its humor, in the way it uses its vampire special effects). And it is narrowly focused on its central story with all the details serving that one storyline, which makes it feel like the movie is doing more than just its hour and 25 minutes would suggest. B+

Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some suggestive references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Osmany Rodriguez and written by Rodriguez and Blaise Hemmingway, Vampires vs. the Bronx is an hour and 25 minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Enola Holmes (PG-13)

The 16-year-old little sister to Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes searches for their vanished mother in Enola Holmes, a light, fun mystery action romp with a sweet mother/daughter story wrapped in a cute take on the Sherlock Holmes-y characters.

Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) has grown up on the Holmes’ family’s estate, Ferndell Hall, with no real memory of her father, who died when she was little, or her two older brothers, Mycroft (Sam Claflin) and Sherlock (Henry Cavill), who moved to London shortly thereafter. She has spent most of her time with her mother, the free-spirited Eudoria Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter), who taught her jujitsu, chess, chemistry and a love of puzzles and mysteries. Eudoria also played tennis with Enola in the study, home-schooled her and apparently bilked a fair amount of money out of Mycroft, who is shocked to learn that the carriages and footmen and music teachers he had sent money for don’t exist.

Mycroft and Sherlock, who at this point is near the beginning of his career as a famous detective, return to Ferndell Hall after Enola wakes up on her 16th birthday to discover that Eudoria has disappeared. Enola seems genuinely excited to see her brothers, especially Sherlock, but is horrified to learn that Mycroft intends to send her to a finishing school and help her to become a true lady who will marry well and not embarrass her brothers. Enola likes no part of his plans and so, using a few clues her mother left her, a Sherlockian ability for deduction and a plucky can-do spirit, she sets out on a quest to find her mother. Along the way, she finds herself tangled up in the similar escape of a young marquess, Tewksbury (Louis Partridge), who is just smart enough and just floppy-haired enough to make the “blech, marriage” Enola feel teen-girl-ishly around him and want to help him.

Sherlock and Mycroft are very much side characters here but this is still a very Sherlocky kind of story, with a bit of fun visual “parsing the clues” stuff and a bouncy score that calls to mind, without copying, previous Sherlock music. Enola is a fun character to be around; quirky and assured in the way you’d expect a Holmes to be (especially one raised by a mother who, gasp, supports votes for women!) but also enough of a real person, especially when it comes to the relationship with her mother. Brown, whose Enola talks to us a fair amount, sells it all, makes it all feel like it’s coming from someone smart but still young and finding her footing.

This take on Sherlock and Mycroft are interesting as well; this is, at least I think we can infer, Sherlock before Watson, a person still more prone to push people away than draw them into his orbit. This Mycroft is also a kind of fascinating study of the character. In other recent versions of the story, he is often very Establishment and realpolitik but with a soft spot for his brother. Here he is rigid to the point of cruelty — which is maybe not a bad way to have the character start out. And Bonham Carter is clearly having a blast, which is always fun to watch.

Enola Holmes is buoyant and enjoyable — and offers a fun mystery. B+

Rated PG-13 for some violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Harry Bradbeer with a screenplay by Jack Thorne (from a novel by Nancy Springer), Enola Holmes is two hours and 3 minutes long and is distributed via Netflix.