Category: Movie Reviews

Some of you may remember the novel and subsequent film I Don’t Know How She Does It, the title of which was a common expression of wonderment attached to its protagonist, a woman juggling motherhood and career. After a dire, unsettling prologue—one that appears, for a period, to have nothing to do with what comes after—“Madeleine Collins” (a title that, like the aforementioned prologue, only makes sense late in the movie) shows us how one woman juggles a career and two different households in which she’s a mother.

There’s Geneva, where “Margot” is the hard-pressed partner of Abdel and mom to adorable clingy toddler Ninon; she works in the city as a translator. Then there’s Paris, where “Judith” is the adored and sharp-dressing wife of Melvil, a celebrated orchestra conductor. There she looks after two sons; one of them, Joris, is getting old enough to suspect that his mom is not entirely what she seems.

Margot and Judith are the same woman, played with an intense emphasis on the stress that’s building in her untenable situation by Virginie Efira, best known to viewers here for her work in Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” and “Benedetta.” In Antoine Berraud’s film, which he wrote in collaboration with Hélène Klotz, she begins on a note of everyday beleaguered confidence and/or faith that’s not uncommon in a woman’s world. The more we learn about her situation, the more curious it becomes. Abdel is aware of her other life in Paris. And Melvil knows who Abdel is. More than the audience does at first, actually. But Melvil is not privy to the life his wife shares with the other man. It turns out that Judith/Margot’s parents have ties to both domestic situations but no idea of the whole picture.

As snags and coincidental meetings mount up—here’s a former co-worker from years back encountering her under a different name in Geneva! Here’s the scruffy underworld ID forger who has a crush on her and so deliberately gave her a card that expired way before five years were up!—and Judith comes more and more under the snooty eye of Parisian teen son Joris (played with note-perfect petulance by Thomas Gioria), this character, whose true name is never, it seems, really known to the viewer, starts to come apart.

Berraud’s juggling a few themes here—that of the varied roles we’re compelled to take on in life, here pushed to hard limits, and that of the difficulty of being a woman, a popular topic these days. Between the prologue and how the movie’s narrative grows more frantic—not to mention the use of Romain Trouillet’s music that owes a lot to Hitchcock-era Bernard Herrmann—Berraud wants to push this material into the realm of something like a suspense thriller. It doesn’t quite work, especially given the reveal of what drove Efira’s character to her deceits, which, while meant to be heartstring-pulling, plays as rather more banal than one might have expected.  

But the settings are better than credible, as is the acting across the board. Quim Gutierrez is sympathetic and surly as Abdel, who eventually grows so exasperated with his arrangement that he brings another woman into the household. Bruno Salomone, as Melvil, projects a relatively benign self-involvement that makes his inability to see what’s going on almost a given. Jacqueline Bisset is welcome in a supporting role as Margot/Judith’s mother. But the movie is most naturally a showcase for Efira, whose work as an unusual 17^th-century nun in “Benedetta” demonstrated she could play dazzling and tormented with equal facility and who gets to work a similar range here.  

Now playing in theaters. 

“Bad Things,” writer/director Stewart Thorndike’s sophomore feature, is a queer reinterpretation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic “The Shining.” Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) is the inheritor of the Comely Suites, a suburban, snowy hotel passed down by her mother. Ruthie’s relationship with her mother is fraught, and her connection to the hotel is equally traumatic. 

When she brings her girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef) and coupled friends Maddie (Rad Pereira) and Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) for a weekend getaway, the influence of the hotel, and their isolation within it, becomes oppressive. Bad things happen in the Comely Suites, and between Ruthie’s teetering disposition, Fran’s neuroticism, and underlying seeds of doubt, envy, and anger between the group, the friends find themselves at the mercy of various volatile influences.

Thorndike’s film wears its inspiration on its sleeve, from the snowed-in hotel linked to a seemingly inevitable descent into madness to a scene across the hotel bar. And “Bad Things” is something of reinvention, with male patriarchal madness turned to traumatic female rage and family units spun into the intersection of relationships and friendship. But Thorndike’s high-magnitude, cherished concept just never fulfills its potential

Where the central four characters’ friendship and intersecting romantic relationships are meant to be the film’s grounding center, there’s nothing but flimsy connections and dead air. There’s no chemistry between the characters and no genuine feeling in their performances. Their friendship is far from believable, and, as the core of the film’s tension, this failure leaves “Bad Things” lacking emotional investment in its stakes.

Ruthie’s relationship with her mother plays out over unanswered texts and vague mentions, and a history of infidelity tarnishes her relationship with Cal. But every scattered seed of personal history isn’t given the support from the script that allows them to grow into worthwhile inclusions. Ruthie is aloof and angry, and that’s pretty much it. With a script that begs us to give in to her plight, her character is simply too flat to inspire any interest. The trauma plot, which feeds the film’s subtext, is a bit cherry-picked. It comes across as an addition to give the film a semblance of deeper meaning rather than a truly thoughtful exploration of pain’s resilient ties to time and place. 

The look of “Bad Things” is its strongest element. Its cinematography is cold and clinical, harshly objective compared to the hotel’s sometimes surrealist resonance and elusive layout. The entirety of the space is explored, from the pool to cluttered ballrooms and stark placeless rooms. It effectively becomes a character responsible for the eerie, unsettling tone. 

“Bad Things” juggles too many elements with too little focus. It plays out like a waiting game, with a pace that stumbles through its 84-minute runtime with plenty of hollow conversations and a few teases of tension. The relationships meant to hold the film together are floss-bound and flimsy, and the peeks into character histories are thrown away as quickly as they’re mentioned. “Bad Things” is thoughtful as a concept—a ruminant queer and female-forward reinvention of a familiar tale. But by the time any emotional upheaval and bloodshed have paid off, the film has already fatigued itself and its audience.

Now playing on Shudder.  

Michael Cera does an impeccable Marge Simpson impression midway through Dustin Guy Defa’s “The Adults” in a scene in which his character, a vengeful poker player named Eric, doesn’t want to say what he’s really feeling. It’s a defense mechanism Eric shares with his siblings, the similarly aged Rachel (Hannah Gross) and the younger Maggie (Sophia Lillis). They can all do different cartoonish voices. The siblings also sing original songs and dance, with some scenes of their stressful but low-key reunion within “The Adults” suddenly breaking into reams of lyrics and coordinated hand jives, remnants of a creative bond these siblings once shared. Now it’s a way in which they don’t actually talk to each other. 

“The Adults” has many scenes with strange voices and random song-and-dance numbers, and each time it’s a brilliant, animated interpretation of how family bonds can seep into superficiality. Trying to make people laugh instead of letting them see the authentic you; going through the motions, no cues needed. “The Adults” is perceptive and funny about this throughout in a way that is anti-razzmatazz just as much as it is anti-twee. Writer/director Defa and his three excellent performances present this “quirky” family trait without a trace of irony. 

The movie’s premise is overly, perhaps knowingly familiar–Eric returns home for the first time in years and faces the people and pain he left behind. Rachel is not amused, feeling the burn of Eric’s disappearance and detachment. He doesn’t consider all that Rachel has shared in brief communications about her past woes (about her ex, about their mom dying, about her inheriting the family house); he doesn’t fully grasp how funereal she has become, adorned in different shades of black and with her clothes always covering her neck. But he does criticize her for not being as fun as she used to be. Gross captures how exhausting it can be in Rachel’s shoes, illustrating her resulting defensive nature with a tragic coldness. 

Eric makes the visit home all the more teeth-gnashing for Rachel by saying it will be short. Eric even lies about what else will be keeping him busy on the trip and insists on staying at a hotel despite his two sisters living nearby. He has such low bandwidth for his family that he pretends to take a call during a bowling trip and goes to the claw machine instead. 

Rachel is worried about what Eric’s reemergence will do to Maggie, who is extremely excited to see her older brother, and unaware that he’s mostly in town to win poker games, extending his stay each night to maintain a hot streak. But Maggie lacks Rachel’s cynicism, at least for now, and is closer to the golden days of the siblings before loss and distance broke up their band. She got the memo to speak in monotone during this uncertain reunion, and yet Maggie is the first person to break into song as they sit in the backyard of the family home, with Eric eventually joining her. She is the source of the movie’s tightest hugs. Lillis’ performance, her giddiness cracking through the solemnity that comes with such dysfunction, is full of worrisome vulnerability and warming energy. 

“The Adults” is a triage of dynamic characters, and its version of a “villain” helps the story become all that more distinct. Michael Cera has been absent from lead movie roles for a couple of years, but in the role of Eric, he returns with an intriguing intensity and is well in control of his sometimes novel presence (as in “Barbie”). There’s a striking, alarming uncertainty to the scowl he reveals when the sister hang-out isn’t working for him or when he’s doing that Marge Simpson accent. At night, when playing poker, he further reveals Eric’s smug need for admiration but layers it with increasing uncertainty about his true story. It turns out that Cera’s cameo in Aaron Sorkin’s poker story “Molly’s Game” (as “Player X”) was no fluke; he really does have the chops for mind games and limited tells. It’s one of his best performances yet, and it’s fitting for a movie that encourages you to read all faces closely.

Defa’s film aligns with the notion that it’s how a story is told–how it feels–and not just what it is about. And there is so much to feel from his take on dysfunction, including how it presents siblings who can sing and dance in unison but are not friends. “The Adults” is defined by such crucial touches: even the incredible, jazzy score by Alex Weston is careful with its flute and piano as if trying to tiptoe around the story’s awkwardness. Wide shots from Tim Curtin’s cinematography of Rachel and Eric standing across from each other, both marooned in the same frame, couldn’t be more painful. Watching Eric join his sisters in a dance routine later on couldn’t be more hopeful, however bittersweet.  

Now playing in theaters. 

Aggressively mediocre, Netflix’s “The Monkey King” takes no risks and offers too little humor, heart, or action to entertain all but the youngest in the family. Anyone in your clan old enough to read and not merely be enchanted by loud noises and flashing colors will likely get bored by this 96-minute movie that feels twice as long.

Tales of the Mandarin Chinese character known as Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, have been told for generations, adapted into manga, TV series, and films many times. In fact, the great Stephen Chow, who made “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” in 2013 (along with must-sees “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” both directly referenced here) is an executive producer on this project, lending a bit of cultural credence to a Chinese tale being told by an American animator. However, director Anthony Stacchi, who helmed the hit “Open Season” and the excellent “The Boxtrolls,” fails to find enough that feels like actual cultural specificity here. It’s a truly generic tale of heroism, a road trip movie that takes two characters literally to Hell and back but doesn’t find much of interest on the journey. It’s a harmless animated adventure and a time-killer. Sometimes that’s all it takes for harried parents, but one of the most famous legends in Chinese history deserves better.

Telling part of the first section of Journey to the West, “The Monkey King” centers that tome’s most beloved character, voiced a bit annoyingly by an inconsistent Jimmy O. Yang. Considering himself more than an ordinary simian, The Monkey King strives to be an immortal, and to be one, he must defeat 100 demons with his magical staff (Nan Li), a clever idea rendered dully here. He eventually partners with a girl named Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) on his journey into mythological history, and the partnership between a monkey who is convinced he’s a hero and a girl who’s convinced she could never be one does give a film that was too narratively loose some much-needed structure (although it’s interesting to note that Lin is a creation of this version of this tale and not the source).

“The Monkey King” gets its most visual and character strength from the Dragon King, a singing, dancing, power-mad creation voiced well by Bowen Yang of “Saturday Night Live.” A true villain in a piece that doesn’t have one for too long, Yang’s egocentric demon gives the final act of “The Monkey King” some needed stakes and some well-crafted fight choreography, courtesy of Siwei Zou. When the film occasionally channels Chow’s sense of martial arts whimsy, it finds some momentum. But it regularly then lurches to a halt for a generic conversation between Monkey and Lin or another episodic encounter along the way, often scored to a heavy-metal riff that mistakes loud for exciting.

Of course, “The Monkey King” will eventually impart some lessons, including one about the title character getting too powerful for his own good in the final act. That the script by Ron J. Friedman, Stephen Bencich, and Rita Hsiao includes the actual Buddha in its climax could lead to a few interesting conversations with the little ones about peace, acceptance, and belief. However, like so many aspects of “The Monkey King,” it’s more like a prompt instead of an actual conversation.

Netflix has excelled over the last few years with some of the best animation out there. Projects like “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” got a lot of deserved attention, but there have also been many lesser-known family flicks that featured far more ambition than what’s often seen in theaters (“Klaus,” “The Sea Beast,” “The Willoughbys,” and more). I approached “The Monkey King” with the hope it could be 2023’s surprise Netflix animated classic. It won’t be joining the immortals of the form any time soon.

On Netflix now.

In writer/director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s feature debut, “Mutt,” time never slows down for his busy lead character, Feña (Lio Mehiel). The story follows a day in the life of a trans man living in New York City, which in this movie, means coping with prejudice and trying to resolve everyday problems. At a club, Feña reconnects with his old ex-boyfriend, John (Cole Doman), who later asks to see and feel the scars of Feña’s top surgery yet walks away coldly after spending the night together. Next, Feña’s younger sister, Zoe (MiMi Ryder), shows up unannounced after running away from school, but he has other worries on his mind, like how his mom may accuse him of kidnapping his sister (they’re estranged), how the bank won’t cash his check because his current name does not match his deadname, and how his friend who promised to lend their car to pick up Feña’s father (another estranged parent) from the airport has fallen through. It’s one long, difficult day, but Feña muddles through, one step at a time, in front of Lungulov-Klotz’s camera. 

Feña’s New York odyssey brings to mind movies like “After Hours” or “Do the Right Thing,” where a character crosses many people in a short span of time, an experience intensified by the city’s density. But the film’s always-on-the-go pacing resembles more of “Tangerine,” Sean Baker’s film about two trans women of color in Los Angeles. “Mutt” is structured so tightly there are few moments where the film finally slows down enough to let the characters exist, for quiet moments that allow for conversation and confession. And fortunately or unfortunately for Feña, the majority of these vulnerable moments are spent with his complicated ex. This is not an easy, laid back day, and that pacing can feels exhausting at times. 

Lungulov-Klotz’s story also functions like a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to hostile moments like when Feña is misgendered, insensitively questioned by strangers, ostracized by family, or told to hide his trans identity. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating, and he only has so much energy in a given day to cope with people’s ignorance. I can understand how constant rounds of having to justify his existence can wear on audiences already subjected to those same comments and judgments. For some, seeing that oppression onscreen may feel like seeing their experiences represented, seen, and validated. For others, it’s a painful reminder many times over of how the rest of the cis world treats them. “Mutt” offers little in terms of escapism but sticks closer to an intensified version of realism compressed into a brief runtime. 

As Feña, Lio Mehiel conjures up a scrappy screen presence that doesn’t feel too polished or too awkward. He’s wounded yet protective, unafraid to point out his ex’s hypocrisy yet still attracted to him and can’t help but let his eyes meet John’s. We see him reluctantly look after his sister, and work through his network of friends for a helping hand in a time of need. In cinematographer Matthew Pothier’s camera, the frame often closes in on his face, his determined stare, his outrage at bigots, his concern for his sister, and frustration over his bad day. He carries the film on his thin shoulders, beckoning the audience to hurry up and follow him to his next stop. 

The most rewarding scenes are the ones shared between Feña and his sister, Zoe. For once, he is not being micro-aggressed, not being measured to the physicality he used to have. Zoe takes him for who he is: a big brother, sometimes reluctant to help, but ready to step up when needed and listen to her problems. And when Zoe does mess up Feña’s plans, like locking him out of a date’s apartment with his keys and wallet inside, Feña doesn’t retaliate the way their mother does. In small conversations, we see them bond over each other’s pain. 

“Mutt” sticks close to Feña’s perspective, keeping almost all of the other characters at a distance. The isolation he feels when he cannot rely on friends, family, or former lovers adds to agonizing loneliness in a city teeming with people. Lungulov-Klotz’s feature debut is a complicated film that can pull in a viewer or alienate them. It’s so concentrated in its intensity that it can draw in one’s sympathy or exhaust them. It’s a film with a lot on its mind, a frenetic energy to make it to the end of the day, and a character we root for from start to finish. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Bodies are messy. Women’s bodies are especially messy. There are so many phases, and so much can go wrong! There are so many procedures required to make things run smoothly, and these procedures are sometimes painful, placing women at the mercy of medical professionals who treat women’s pain with cavalier indifference. (This pain gap has generated a lot of chatter recently.) The pain and stress of having a body subject to the whims of natural (or unnatural) forces is the subject of Laura Moss’ riveting “birth/rebirth,” where two women merge into a joint Dr. Frankenstein as they attempt to re-animate the body of a dead child. 

“birth/rebirth” has some “body horror” tropes and some straight horror tropes, but it’s not really a monster story. It’s more of a medical thriller, helmed by two twisted conspirators, both operating from a place of desperation and trauma. The tone Moss establishes makes the events seem almost plausible. What if human bodies could regenerate themselves like a starfish does? Is there any way a dead body could come back to life through legitimate medical means?

The two main characters—Rose (Marin Ireland) and Celie (Judy Reyes)—are well-prepared to address this question. Rose works in a hospital morgue, and Celie is a labor/delivery nurse. To call Rose intense is an understatement: she is forbiddingly anti-social and clearly keeping secrets. On the other hand, Celie is raising her daughter Lila (A.J. Lister) on her own and is well-loved by her colleagues. She clearly loves her job. The two women work in the same hospital but don’t know each other. When Lila dies unexpectedly from bacterial meningitis, Rose—who has already been performing regeneration experiments in her apartment and has successfully brought a dead pig named Muriel back to life—sees her chance for the ultimate experiment. Rose packs the corpse in a suitcase and brings it back to her mad scientist’s lair. When Celie discovers Lila’s body has been “lost,” she suspects Rose and follows her home.

One of the main strengths of “birth/rebirth” is Moss’ resistance to the expected. One might expect Celie to be outraged at what Rose has done. One might expect the film to unfold as a battle of wills: Rose fighting to keep her experiment going and Celie attempting to thwart it and rescue Lila for a proper burial. One might expect Lila to “re-animate” as a monster, turning on her saviors with murderous violence. But … none of that happens.

Instead, we get the absurd spectacle of Celie and Rose, medical professionals, teaming up to work on the experiment. Celie moves in with Rose. They take shifts watching over the dead child. They rush out the door to their real jobs. They pack lunches in the kitchen. Muriel, the regenerated pig, snuffles in the corner, and Lila lies in bed, her skin a purplish hue. Since fetus cells are needed to make the essential serum, Celie uses her position at the hospital to acquire it through dishonest—and, frankly, monstrous—means. Even more terrible is the glimpse of how Rose got those fetus cells before Celie, the maternity nurse, came along. It involves unwitting men, bar bathrooms, globs of collected sperm, and syringes. It’s gruesome, but not half as gruesome as how Rose handles her eventual pregnancies. Much of this is stomach-churning, but the subversiveness of “birth/rebirth” is that almost everything shown is an everyday medical procedure, procedures women endure every day in the normal world. The physical demands of having a body, of getting pregnant, bringing a pregnancy to term, of labor, delivery, infertility, damaged cervixes, and all the rest … are here, but twisted. These women will stop at nothing. It’s a match made in mad-scientist heaven.

Both actresses deliver layered and complex performances. The film is often funny, one of the many ways Moss allows for the unexpected. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of what Rose and Celie are trying to do with how matter of fact they are doing it. The dead child lies in bed as the women make lunches, or feed the omnipresent Muriel, or problem-solve each crisis. They make cracks about one another’s diet like a bickering married couple. “At least you didn’t do anything unethical like eat a ham sandwich,” snaps Celie at one point. Celie is all warm and caring; Rose is cold and calculated. Together they make a formidable team. They will use anyone and anything to achieve their goals. In this, they betray the women in their care—dead and alive. Natural biological processes are often very stressful. Nobody knows this better than Celie: she knows the buttons to push with a nervous pregnant woman, and she does.

It’s amazing how far “birth/rebirth” goes into this amoral territory. Lila’s regeneration is a “miracle,” although Rose balks at the term when Celie uses it. This is science, nothing more. The mood established is eerie and mournful, the colors muted and hospital-morgue-green. There are barely any scenes outdoors. Nature doesn’t exist in this world. Ariel Marx’s score is well-placed, sometimes taking on a light tone, adding to the destabilized atmosphere—the music drones on subliminally in an eerie counterpoint. There are a couple of false notes along the way, where Lila’s regeneration seems to be going off the rails, where the supernatural appears to be raising its dead-eyed head. These scenes come from another movie running on “expected” lines.

Two small moments, neither of which center on Celie or Rose, stand out as pointed reminders of the resonances at play in this creepy tale. Early on, Celie assists with a birth. The woman is working hard; the husband stands by supportively. Suddenly the doctor says, “I’m going to perform an episiotomy,” and the woman gasps, “Oh, please, let me try to do it myself!” In her plea is every story you hear about women’s choices being ignored, their concerns about their own bodies dismissed and overruled. In the second moment, a pregnant woman is in crisis on the delivery table, enduring the chaos of an emergency C-section. The nurse reassures her, “Your baby’s going to be fine, I promise you.” Good news! The pregnant woman asks foggily, “What about me?” She’s terrified. The nurse barely understands the question. What about you? What kind of question is that for a pregnant woman to ask? Who cares about you?

Now playing on Shudder. 

Full disclosure, right off the top: I knew I was going to be a soft touch on “Strays.”

We’re a longtime Boston Terrier family, and I’ve always wondered what our dogs would sound like if they could talk to us. (Surely, I’m not the only one who entertains such insane ideas.) So the prospect of an R-rated comedy in which Jamie Foxx provides the voice of a street-smart Boston named Bug—who drops copious F-bombs, gets high on mushrooms, and humps discarded couches—was very exciting.

“Strays” is pretty much a one-joke movie, one last romp at the end of summer. But it finds enough ways into that joke within its perfectly pithy running time to remain zippy and enjoyable. The way it upends heartwarming dog adventure movie tropes is often hilariously inspired. And there’s great chemistry within the voice cast, particularly between Foxx and star Will Ferrell, who had the unusual benefit of recording together.

Director Josh Greenbaum has shown a flair for out-there comedy with a sweetness at its core in the delightfully bizarre “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (2021). He achieves a similar balance with raunchier material in “Strays.” Besides featuring a ton of profanity, the screenplay from Dan Perrault includes plenty of poop and pee jokes (not all of which are entirely puerile), vigorous humping, and some wilderness mayhem that some may find shocking. But the film also explores the importance of identifying and escaping toxic relationships, achieving a sense of self-worth, and basking in the support of deep and unexpected friendships.

I may have teared up a few times. Like I said at the start, a soft touch. Your mileage may vary on this canine road trip.

“Strays” begins on an upbeat note with narration from Ferrell as Reggie, an adorably scruffy Border terrier who’s clueless to the fact that his miserable, abusive owner (Will Forte) hates him and keeps trying to abandon him. “Today is going to be the best day ever!” he intones in a sunny manner reminiscent of Margot Robbie’s optimism at the start of “Barbie.” And totally coincidentally, “Strays” shares a similar structure to Greta Gerwig’s mega-blockbuster: Idealistic character leaves home, goes to the “real world,” makes friends, and learns hard truths before returning to fix things with the newfound knowledge. Only in this case, the protagonist’s purpose is literally to bite off his owner’s penis, a more violent form of eviscerating the patriarchy than Barbie ever could imagine. Ferrell is essentially doing a version of his character in “Elf” here, mixing wide-eyed enthusiasm with deadpan observations and bringing his signature sincerity to a silly role. As always, he’s a hoot.

After his owner dumps him in a faraway city, Reggie gets help in his quest from the trash-talking Bug, who insists he wants to be a stray and navigates the world with the swagger of a little dog who thinks he’s big. Foxx has fantastic energy here, savoring the musicality of his character’s every profane tirade. Along for the trip are the Australian shepherd Maggie (Isla Fisher), a gifted sniffer, and a Great Dane named Hunter (Randall Park), a former police K-9 who now works as a therapy dog for the elderly.

Cursing and calamitous antics ensue, much of which you’ve probably already seen in the trailer, but thankfully there are plenty of surprises in store. The visual effects work is mostly seamless, with all of the dogs (and their unseen trainers) giving impressive physical performances. Some of the CGI in the face and mouth movements are distractingly jumpy and inconsistent, especially regarding Bug’s dialogue. Is it too much to ask for total realism in a late-summer talking dog movie?  

The gross-out gags may grow a bit repetitive, but “Strays” ultimately redeems itself by ending on a note that’s feel-good without being cloying. It features some amusing insights into how dogs perceive the world, from fireworks to postal workers. And it just might make you think twice about what that pampered Pomeranian in the expensive sweater is barking about at the dog park.

Now playing in theaters. 

It’s 2036 AD, and space aliens have not only landed on Earth, but also maybe forever changed the economy, too. That’s the main premise of “Landscape with Invisible Hand,” a satirical sci-fi comedy based on M.T. Anderson’s award-winning young adult sci-fi novel. Adapted and directed by Cory Finley (“Thoroughbreds,” “Bad Education”), “Landscape with Invisible Hand” expands the plot and core relationships of Anderson’s novel, which follows an aspiring teen painter and his family as they struggle to make enough money to keep their family home.

Some of Finley’s tweaks and twists stand out, especially how some characters wallow and even weaponize their financial distress as a self-soothing coping strategy. Unfortunately, “Landscape with Invisible Hand” still relies too much on basic and by-now trite ideas about making money and staying human under otherwise degrading living conditions. Finley’s E.T.s are clearly meant to reveal how small and/or resilient humanity can be when faced with even fewer ways to survive, but they ultimately seem more like a fanciful plot device than a thoughtful extension of the world outside the movie theater.

The setup’s good enough: the Vuvv have been observing our planet since the 1950s but have kept their distance out of fear of being shunned like any other outsiders. Now they’re here and have already been welcomed by rapacious businessmen and their newly jobless subordinates. The Vuvv, whom one character describes as “gooey” sentient coffee tables, have advanced technology but lack empathy. Soon everyone on Earth works for them, either as hired help or entertainment. The Vuvv like retrograde 1950s sitcoms because they like the idea of people more than the reality. Go figure.

Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk), a teenage artist, mostly keeps to himself but still becomes involved with the Vuvv after he invites fellow high-schooler Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers) to stay in his family’s basement. At first, Adam’s mom Beth (Tiffany Haddish), resists this new living situation, but she tentatively warms up to Chloe’s apologetic dad (Josh Hamilton) and surly older son Hunter (Michael Gandolfini) once Mr. Marsh starts paying rent. Chloe also chips in, but she does it by recording a live “courtship broadcast” video stream with Adam, which they tape and upload for the Vuvv using data-recording monitors called nodes. The Vuvv pay to watch Adam and Chloe hold hands and neck with each other, which understandably estranges the young lovers. Then the Vuvv sue Chloe and Adam for false advertising, since their livestream is called “Adam and Chloe in Love,” so they have to figure out an alternative living/money-making arrangement.

Much of “Landscape with Invisible Hand” sets up ideas that are either negligibly developed or carefully avoided. The Marshes’ resentment towards the Campbells provides the greatest source of tension since Mr. Marsh resents Mrs. Campbell for having opportunities he and his son crave. Hunter’s pouting is sometimes amusing, though a later scene where he shaves off his eyebrows to make himself look more appealing to the Vuvv doesn’t go far enough. It’s also disappointing to see not much made of an early scene where Chloe shoos away a broke classmate (Christian Adam) by telling him that he’s scaring away her other customers. His sullen retort—“What other customers?”—is funnier and more to the point than anything else in “Landscape with Invisible Hand.”

The Campbell family, including Adam’s sister Natalie (Brooklynn MacKinzie), also don’t have much of an emotional life beyond their discomfort with the Vuvv. That’s partly by design, though the movie’s brisk pace and bracing close-ups suggest that Finley’s too invested in keeping viewers at arm’s length. There’s even a pseudo-Spielbergian scene involving Adam’s dad that explains why there’s no love left in the Campbell home. That’s a provocative concept, but it’s not developed beyond a point. Instead, Haddish gets a tidy little speech in which she tells off one of the Vuvv, and then the movie shifts focus yet again so that it’s about Adam, the frustrated painter. That plot thread predictably does not end well for Adam, though he still gets to walk away without much dramatic fallout or urgency.

You can see much of what’s wanting in “Landscape with Invisible Hand” in the scenes that revolve around the Vuvv. They’re weird-looking and quirky, but they don’t do or suggest much beyond what we already know. The rich don’t need to like or even care about you, not as long as they can pay you. That’s about as meaningful as “Landscape with Invisible Hand” gets, which is unfortunate given how much time is spent on endlessly restating the skewed terms and conditions of Adam’s perpetually complicated life story. Finley deserves credit for adding extra wrinkles to Anderson’s story, but “Landscape with Invisible Hand” doesn’t cut deep enough to leave a mark.

Now playing in theaters. 

Sayre’s law says, “In any dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” In “The Owners,” a film from the Czech Republic that takes place almost entirely at a meeting of a building’s co-op members, the intensity of feeling is always high, whether the topic at hand is as minor as if there needs to be a vote about who will take the notes or as literally fundamental as approval of critical maintenance of the building’s roof and pipes. Inside the co-op’s meeting room are scuffles, bigoted accusations, tears, and people who walk out in disgust or fury, all in a tone of the darkest satire, based on a play by the film’s writer/director, Jirí Havelka. 

Over the opening credits, we see a family hurrying to get ready. In contrast to the chaos in their apartment, the soundtrack features an elegant classical piece by Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. Its title translates as “Under the Olive Tree of Peace and the Palm Tree of Virtue the Crown of Bohemia Splendidly Shines Before the Whole World: Melodrama.” That’s the only peace or virtue we’ll be getting in this film.

The chair of the meeting is Mrs. Zahrádková (Tereza Ramba), who is very organized and very determined, wearing a brightly colored sweater and little plastic barrettes in her hair that emphasize her youth compared to most of the other members of the homeowners’ association. She wants her husband, Mr. Zahrádka (Vojtech Kotek), to keep the minutes, but Mrs. Roubíčková (Klára Melíšková), acting as a combination parliamentarian/cop, insists on a vote to approve, even voting on whether there should be voting, with several layers of approval and verification for everything. Mrs. Zahrádková starts to lose patience because she is eager to get to her ambitious agenda. But the other attendees have other views if some seem unclear on the basic concepts. 

Mr. Švec (David Novotný) is the son of one of the owners, but his mother is in the hospital, so he is there to cast her votes. Mrs. Roubíčková insists on seeing his power of attorney. He passes her the paper. She notes that the only signature on it is his; what it needs is his mother’s authorization. He obligingly takes it back, scribbles on the paper, and hands it back. “Even if I closed my eyes and did not see you signing it for your mother,” she sniffs, “you cannot sign it ‘Mom.’” 

The snobbish Mrs. Procházková (Pavla Tomicová) is accompanied by her “representative,” Mr. Novák (Ondřej Malý). She does not live in her apartment; she rents it to six Ghanaian medical students. Mr. Nitranský (Andrej Polák) does not let the homophobic slurs from some of his neighbors interfere with his commitment to making urgently needed repairs to the building’s common areas. Mr. Kubát (Jiří Lábus) longs for the good old days of communism. Another attendee says nothing and just reads his book. And there are two sets of newcomers, a newlywed couple who are mostly silent and the affable Čermáks, fraternal twins (Kryštof Hádek, Stanislav Majer), who have just inherited the apartment from their father. 

As the conflicts move from the annoying to the existential, the one-room setting is appropriately depressing and claustrophobia-inducing. Anyone who has ever suffered through efforts to try to achieve consensus might want to consider this a trigger warning. Some of the film’s satire relies too heavily on repetition, with Mr. Kubát insisting that everything used to be better under the Soviets and Mr. Novák responding to every issue by handing out his business card, explaining that whatever the problem is, from plumbing to pets, he has a “small company” that can fix it. The cutaways that show the reality of the situations being debated are superfluous. 

But as the frustration of the group gets more intense and the issues get more controversial (and, unsurprisingly, expensive), it becomes clear that the film is making a larger point about the inability of governments, citizens, and human beings to overcome what Garrett Hardin called The Tragedy of the Commons: How do we find a way to do what is best for the group in the long term instead of what is best in the short term for us as individuals?  How do we care as much about the land, water, and air we all share as about our own homes? How do we act in time to prevent the collapse of our literal foundations? All we can do is hope we find a better way than this group.

Now playing in select theaters. 

At first blush, there are few unexpected notes to “Blue Beetle.” When a baddie says, “The love you feel for your family makes you weak,” you know the hero will prove that claim wrong. The villain, Victoria (Susan Sarandon), is hardly configured; it doesn’t take much guessing to know they’re a metaphor for the past and present ills of white-American imperialism. Love will prevail. Self-discovery will happen. And yet, “Blue Beetle” is surprisingly politically spry; the family-bound narrative is shockingly pure; its comedy swerves away from low-hanging memeification. Instead, the film cares more about how these characters mesh. 

While the Blue Beetle character dates back to 1939, the updated, culturally specific incarnation of Jaime Reyes didn’t grace DC pages until 2006. Since then, comic book movies have become the center of American pop culture. But those films have only recently attempted to touch every corner of human existence. Marvel Studios has, for instance, the “Black Panther” series and “Eternals,” Sony has the animated “Spider-Man,” while DCU has “Black Adam,” “Aquaman,” “Birds of Prey,” and, to a lesser extent, the “Justice League” film. While diverse, the DCU movies have mostly avoided locking characters into any sort of cultural specificity. “Blue Beetle” marks a sharp break from that unwritten edict. 

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (“Charm City Kings”), this heartwarming, crowd-pleasing comic book flick is less serious and more colorful than the tonally dour mood of many contemporary superhero films. 

A mountain of love falls fast when Jaime (an endearing Xolo Maridueña) arrives home from college to the fictional Palmera City; hugs, jokes, and genuine affection compose these early scenes. But all’s not well with the Reyes family: Jaime’s father, Alberto (Damián Alcázar), recently lost his auto shop business. Now, Jaime’s childhood home is in danger of being repossessed by Kord Industry. Despite his pre-law degree, Jaime struggles to land a job. He goes to work with his younger waggish sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) as help at a resort. 

Much of “Blue Beetle” concerns the economic disparity between the haves and have-nots, particularly regarding imperialist powers. A person like Jaime can do all the right things: go to college, remain humble, and be pleasant—yet his background, a poor Mexican residing in the disadvantaged Edge Keys neighborhood, will always limit his future. However, he thinks he finds a lifeline when he steps in between the philanthropic Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) and her ruthless aunt Victoria. Though Victoria fires him, Jenny offers him a job if he’ll meet with her the next day at Kord headquarters. 

From there, the script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer turns toward convenience to speed up the narrative: Jenny attempts to steal a technologically advanced blue scarab before Victoria uses its power to develop super-soldiers; Jenny puts it into Jaime’s unsuspecting hands to smuggle out; Jenny never checks back on the scarab—though she has Jaime’s number—until Jaime goes looking for her. It’s a jumble of nonsensical events that get us to Jaime becoming symbiotically linked with the scarab and getting a technologically sharp blue suit. 

Some light prep work follows: Jaime must learn how to use his new powers, sparks of romance kick up, origin stories spring forth—you know, the usual comic book beats. These are arguably the weakest components of “Blue Beetle,” particularly because they’re so inarticulately composed. Whatever doom Victoria provides doesn’t jump off the page, rather, the ever-capable Sarandon adds smart beats and nuanced quirks to raise this baseline villain above the mundane. Victoria’s grunting, stoic henchman, Conrad (Raoul Max Trujillo), goes much of the film as a bruising, immovable obstacle until Dunnet-Alcocer crams an entire backstory in the narrative’s final ten minutes. Jenny and Jaime also lack chemistry, partially because Marquezine can’t help but overact as she turns up every facial expression to their breaking point. 

Those shortcomings, however, do not negate what works in “Blue Beetle.” For one, the script and actors mine culturally specific references to the superhero parody series “El Chapulín Colorado” and the telenovela “María Mercedes,” keeping scenes alive and fresh (a Vicks Vapor Rub joke left me doubled-over laughing). Its political invocations, such as an allusion to the School of the Americas (a major topic to cover in a big-budget film) and a harrowing scene of a raid upon the Reyes home, while overwrought in its use of slow motion, humanizes endangered emigrant families, are daring subplots to add. 

Though the action sequences are unremarkable, they still carry some vigor because of this infectiously entertaining ensemble: Adriana Barraza (“Babel”) is a walking, talking highlight reel of punchlines, and George Lopez as the conspiracy theorist Uncle Rudy displays a tremendous elasticity, pulling out animated pratfalls and hilarious one-liners with ease. 

At the beginning of “Blue Beetle,” you know the line “The love you feel for your family makes you weak” will ultimately be proven wrong through some narrative device. Soto’s superhero flick, however, also makes family the film’s strength for an enriching time at the movies. “Blue Beetle” might not break the mold, but it does break expectations.   

In theaters Friday, August 18th.