Category: Movie Reviews

Imaginatively edited, sexually explicit, and filled with eloquent and often boisterous individuals of a sort who rarely get to claim a spotlight in documentaries, the trans sex worker portrait “Kokomo City” is a blast of creative freedom in an increasingly corporatized period of nonfiction filmmaking. It focuses on four trans women, Koko Da Doll, Daniella Carter, Liyah Mitchell and Dominique Silver, interviewing them in their own homes and ordinary public spaces—sometimes glammed up, but more often with little makeup. The black and white imagery links it to a rich mid-century tradition of American documentaries (typified by films like the Maysles Brothers’ “Salesman” and Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason”) that focused on personalities and aimed for a fly-on-the-wall feeling. But the structure and editing have a punk rock midnight-movie energy, taking pride in flagrantly ignoring the (purely theoretical!) documentary filmmaking handbook of do’s and don’ts. The cheeky-blasé subtext is: If you don’t like what we’re doing, go watch a different movie.

“Kokomo City” is shot and cut by D. Smith, a Black, trans, Grammy-nominated producer who worked with Lil Wayne, Keri Hilson, and Katy Perry. Smith was ostracized by the music industry after coming out in 2014 and appeared on season five of “Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta,” a gig that she now regrets because of how she tried to stand out by (she says) somewhat caricaturing herself. She was also homeless for a while. This movie is a reclamation, a reinvention, and a return. It’s bursting with energy, it’s all over the place, and there are times when it sorta trips over its ambition. But it’s hard to pinpoint, in some faux-objective sense, what does or doesn’t “work,” because it isn’t trying to satisfy any criteria but its own. The whole thing is uncoupled from mainstream/”normie” life and bourgeois concepts of propriety, much like the New York- and Atlanta-based people it depicts. 

The opening scene is an extemporaneous monologue about a sex worker taking a gun away from a client, intercut with hyperbolic recreations that have an almost Pop Art goofiness (like slapstick comedy scenes in a Baz Luhrmann flick). The monologue is filmed handheld and zoomed-in from several feet away from speaker, who is sometimes partly obscured by a doorframe. The framing makes the audience feel it has been granted privileged access to insider knowledge. This feeling persists all the way through through a politically incendiary closing montage with full-frontal nudity, filmed and cut in a way that makes it feel like a 1990s MTV video that MTV would have never dared broadcast. There are partial dramatizations of the subjects’ experiences on the job (some of which feature graphic sex scenes with cartoonishly loud sound effects) and low-key, no-fuss hangout scenes where you get to see intimate moments of a more mundane sort (grooming in a bathroom mirror, canoodling on a couch). Smith uses wall-to-wall underscoring in some scenes, a la Spike Lee, lending gritty documentary material a touch of Old Hollywood grandiosity. 

These markedly different bits sit next to each other in linear sequence, as in an anthology film comprised of short subjects. The movie is not interested in easing viewers out of one mode and into the next. The result feels not only justified but aesthetically right. The common element joining the subjects’ stories is a shared belief, rooted in experience, that most of the world ignores, exploits, or violently persecutes them (one section mourns trans women murdered by clients). So it makes sense that “Kokomo City” wouldn’t trouble itself with questions of appropriateness raised by anyone, even viewers from within the community who might object to how Smith puts certain body parts on display.

The film is aware of outsiders looking in and sometimes addresses them directly. But the material also looks inward at the Black and trans community and the places where it intersects—especially the bedroom. The film’s title is an allusion to blues singer Kokomo Arnold, whose “Sissy Man” includes the lines, “I woke up this mornin’ with my pork grindin’ business in my hand/Lord, if you can’t send me no woman, please send me some sissy man.” The interviewees are understanding yet critical of “trade”—the sullen, straight-acting men, married and single, who bottom with them in secret. “Gay panic” is often used as a defense by clients who know full well what they snuck out and slunk around to get, who cannot reconcile their public-facing macho presentation with the vulnerability and desires that they show behind closed doors, and lie, ghost, or lash out to protect their own illusions. “They wanna see a pretty-ass girl with a big d—,” Koko says. This past April, a few months after “Kokomo City” won awards on the festival circuit, Koko was murdered in Atlanta. 

Despite the often harsh realities of the life it captures, “Kokomo City” is a fundamentally warm and embracing work. It sets its own boundaries and finds peace within them. The loose-limbed, free-flowing approach to the stories lets each speaker become the star of whatever scene they happen to inhabit. Smith told The Guardian that one of her filmmaking influences was 2016’s “Joker,” especially the scenes that showed the title character living the daily grind without makeup. “I just wanted to re-create the narrative of what trans women truly are,” she said. “We’re human, and this is what we look like. We look like you, we’re fun, and we’re vulnerable like you, and we want love like you.” 

From the original ride to now-three of film adaptations, Disney’s Haunted Mansion is properly cemented into the company’s spooky canon. This installment is in line behind 2003’s nostalgic Eddie Murphy chapter and 2021’s Muppets edition. Justin Simien (“Dear White People,” “Bad Hair”) directs this return to a Black-led live-action iteration of the story. 

The simple plot lends to simple execution across the board. Single mother Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) has moved into the antique house of her dreams with her nine-year-old son Travis (Chase Dillon). But not long after stepping into the home, they become blatantly aware of the spirited tenants occupying the creepy abode. Enlisting the help of grieving astrophysicist Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), priest Father Kent (Owen Wilson), medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and haunted house expert Professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), the gang hopes to put their heads together to rid the house of its supernatural tormentors.

“Haunted Mansion” is star-studded but shoddy at best. Despite the talent of writer Katie Dippold (“The Heat” “Parks and Recreation”), the script’s punchlines are forced and flat. Everyone is doled their share of one-liners, but Wilson and Haddish carry most of the weight. While Wilson often runs dry, Haddish delivers in her classic tone and cadence, executing flimsy jokes to her best ability. The script does toe the line of Disney’s boundaries, tossing in some light innuendos in a somewhat concerted effort to draw in more mature audiences.

Simien’s film does display its fun-loving origins in how the house can transform into a surrealist landscape. Halls that never end, ceilings that extend into impossibility, gargoyles, hidden rooms, and the ever-so-classic ghost-inhabited portraits recall nostalgia for the film’s classic Gothicism. “Haunted Mansion” boasts a handful of playful chases and spooky sequences, but they’re fleeting and soon bring us back to the film’s stuttering pace. It’s hard to find any true tension in “Haunted Mansion” until the climactic faceoff in the third act. 

Perhaps the greatest letdown of Simien’s movie is how little the cast delivers. The ensemble is brimming with lively, prolific candidates, yet the script hardly seems to keep this in mind. Their talents are either underused or misdirected. Stanfield’s Ben mourns the loss of his wife, his grief becoming a cornerstone of the story. Yet while we’ve seen Stanfield display emotional depth in other roles, every tearful moment feels like a soap opera, not on account of sentiment, but performance. There’s a sense of watered-down contrivance across the board. The forced, postured will-they won’t-they romance between Stanfield and Dawson showcases this also. And with seasoned comedic actors in Wilson, DeVito, and Haddish, too few of their comedy efforts actually hit. 

“Haunted Mansion” is constructed with the familiar bricks of a Gothic tale, down to the theme of grief that runs throughout. There’s a thoughtful examination of how grief makes us vulnerable while also being able to harness the power of that love to connect with one another and appreciate the lives we lead. There’s also value for family audiences in the nostalgic spookiness that rides along the surface. But with a repeated sourness in the film’s comedic efforts and a tragically misused ensemble, “Haunted Mansion” misses the chance to become a Halloween classic. 

In theaters now.

As the leads in Jeff Rowe’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” spoke with all the momentum of my kids when they have a bottle of Prime—it’s a new energy drink for those out of the loop—I thought about the difference between fast-paced and hyperactive when it comes to this kind of movie. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and its incredible sequel are undeniably fast-paced, but the momentum is right for the material. “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” co-written by this film’s director, also packs so much into its runtime that it’s impossible to catch it all on first viewing. Those films are fast because they’re fueled by so much creativity that you can see their ideas bursting off the screen. “Mutant Mayhem” is fast because it thinks it should be. There’s a difference. Using its hyperactive nature to disguise how there’s not much going on, “Mutant Mayhem” is a pretty shallow venture thematically. Having said that, it also has undeniably strong visuals and enough creative voice work to make it tolerable on a hot August day when families need an air-conditioned theater for a few hours. I wish the mayhem of it all led somewhere more rewarding.

Yes, it’s another origin story. Despite being the seventh film to feature these characters, Rowe and co-writers Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg go back to the beginning of the TMNT saga, opening with a scientist named Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) creating the infamous ooze that turns ordinary creatures into mutants. When the authorities break into Baxter’s basement lair, the ooze is spilled into the sewers, and the rest is comic book history as a quartet of turtles becomes fast-talking humanoid creatures named Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), and Raphael (Brady Noon).

Fans of the franchise know that the turtles are nothing without their leader, Splinter (Jackie Chan), a rat who was also transformed by the ooze and became the father to the teenage mutants after teaching them the ninja skills to protect themselves. Splinter is extremely overprotective, ordering the boys to stay away from human beings at all costs or risk being milked by them (don’t ask). A flashback reveals that Splinter tried to introduce himself and the turtles to the humans, but they were somewhat understandably terrified. Now they all live underground, as the turtles sneak out to get supplies and wish they could have a normal teenage life beyond the sewers.

Meanwhile, one of Baxter’s experiments responds very differently to the chasm between the human race and the mutants now living underground. Whereas Splinter wants to hide, Superfly (Ice Cube) wants something closer to vengeance. He’s assembled a group of mutants that include Genghis Frog (Hannibal Buress), Leatherhead (Rose Byrne), Rocksteady (John Cena), Wingnut (Natasia Demetriou), Ray Fillet (Post Malone), Bebop (Seth Rogen), and Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd). Throw in Maya Rudolph as a mysterious figure trying to find the turtles and Ayo Edebiri as April, the human being who befriends the turtles and tries to introduce them to the above-ground world, and you have a stellar voice cast. Once Superfly and his cadre of creatures join the action, “Mutant Mayhem” gets exponentially more fun as each great actor is allowed fun voice beats to shine.

The visuals of “Mutant Mayhem” also explode when Superfly and his gang join in the fun as the animators bring their A-game to creative character designs that recall the source material but also pop on the big screen. The entire film has that “Spider-Verse” aesthetic that looks like a comic book come to life. The characters can go from simple animation that looks hand-drawn to something more like stop-motion animation and then back again in a manner that keeps the film visually engaging.

I just wish those visuals got more depth from their characters and story beats. “Mutant Mayhem” is ultimately a coming-of-age film, the story of four teenagers who discover a reality they want to live in between Splinter’s overprotectiveness and Superfly’s anger. While that’s an interesting theme, and it’s nice to see a version of this franchise take the word “teenage” seriously, it’s also pretty light for kids and their parents who can handle more complex themes. It feels like there’s a variation on this script that takes as many risks as the visuals do instead of going predictably from point A to point B in the coming-of-age playbook. 

Most damagingly, as ridiculous as this may sound, we really don’t learn enough about the turtles, who are reduced to one or two traits as they’re pushed along the action track of the movie. De facto leader Leonardo is the most responsible of the crew and develops a crush on April. The other three barely even get that much development. Of course, not everything can be “Mitchells” or “Spider-Verse,” but those films grounded pieces of the coming-of-age genre even as they raced through their stories. Maybe it’s a product of my age or lack of energy drink intake, but “Mutant Mayhem” too often just feels hyper.

In theatres on August 2^nd.

We first see Helen (Ellie Kemper) sitting alone at a party. All around her, people are talking, drinking, laughing, and dancing. She does not seem to notice anyone and no one notices her. She pulls out a piece of paper to re-read her list of goals for an upcoming hiking trip:

1. Find a deeper connection to nature.
2. Rise up from my own ashes like a freaking phoenix.
3. Earn a damned certificate.

The party’s host is Helen’s brother, Duncan (an endearing performance by Alexander Koch), and she is only there to give him her keys so he can house-sit for her. But he has gone off with his girlfriend, so she gives them to Duncan’s best friend, Jake (Luke Grimes of “Yellowstone”). He asks her to stay: “You used to be so much fun.” She bristles, “I’m like so much fun you wouldn’t be able to comprehend it.” We don’t need to wait to see her give Duncan a laminated to-do list for the house-sit to understand that what she cannot comprehend is how not fun she has become.

The ashes she wants to rise from are her divorce and the unhappiness that led to it. But you do not have to have seen many movies to guess that she will learn to acknowledge some other ashes from her past on the trip and that when the leader, Beckett (Ben Cook), says that the hike, 81 miles on the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut and New York, will be “daunting but beautiful,” he is also talking about life and all of the challenges and opportunities we face.

You will probably also guess where this is going when Duncan’s friend Jake shows up as one of the hikers. He and Helen pretend they have not met before to avoid complicated explanations. Like a mapped-out trail, you know where it will end up, but there’s enough to enjoy along the way.

And there is plenty to enjoy here, including cinematographer Daniel Vecchione’s postcard-pretty scenery of New England fall colors, some poppy needle drops, and a gorgeous Pablo Neruda poem. Some characters are, as one of them says, “all more than we seem to be.” Each of them has an opportunity to surprise us and themselves. Shayvawn Webster has a warmly positive energy as the upbeat Windy, who has one of the film’s most meaningful moments relating to the title. Gus Birney probably has the most surprising revelation as the initially ditsy Kaylee. Even Beckett, the barely-older-than-a-Boy-Scout leader, shows us another side. The pre-credit sequence has a funny compilation of his most frequent comment. Blythe Danner is always a treasure and pure delight here as Helen’s grandmother.

The story’s heart is Kemper’s Helen, of course, and this role is a perfect fit. Helen is less sunny than most of Kemper’s roles, allowing her to show more subtlety, depth, and complexity. Her essential radiance is evident throughout, even with (apparently) no make-up in the scenes on the trail. Kemper has a monologue, a story from her childhood, which calls on her to show a vivid range of expressions as she recalls the before and after of a traumatic loss. It is very moving to see the fleeting softness and joy on her face as she remembers the “before” part of the story and then the grief, shame, anger, and effort she has put into compartmentalizing those memories for many years. 

Grimes has a less showy role; one might say the Ken to her Barbie. His big reveal will be no surprise to anyone. But he brings a welcome tone of wry humor to Jake, and we can see his feelings for Helen long before she does. More important, by that time, we want her to see them. 

Writer/director Vicky Wight adapted the popular novel by Katherine Center, following their previous collaboration on “The Lost Husband.” She keeps the tone bright but makes room for quieter moments. Some in the audience might be inspired to hike the Appalachian Trail, but all will be reminded that the beginner’s first step to happiness is gratitude. 

On Netflix now.

We humans are pretty arrogant Earth tenants, aren’t we? The amount of space we take up, the damage we readily inflict, the cohabitants we sideline—we’re the planet’s loudest renters, which makes us think we own the place, and that every other species should act accordingly. “After the Bite,” an engrossing new documentary that only starts with one Cape Cod town’s debate about what humans can do to protect themselves from a great white shark surge, brings such awareness to the surface. Director Ivy Meeropol (“Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn”) weaves an impressive tapestry of conflicting perspectives—man and animal—that’s far more entertaining and insightful than your average Shark Week fare.

While the themes within “After the Bite” are as lasting as our ticking time on this planet, it focuses them on a tragedy in 2018, when a young man named Arthur Medici was attacked and killed by a shark off a beach in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The attack wasn’t a fluke—great white sharks had been seen more often near the beaches in past years. But it inspired a wealth of various responses. Some people wanted to learn how to better live with them, like the scientists who tag sharks and can follow their movement. Others thought about where to place guilt: on bad infrastructure, on the ballooning seal population that mixes with human swimmers, and more. 

Meeropol’s film doesn’t push the tensions in these head-butting perspectives or try to make much of a plot about them. But the documentary’s observant nature is plenty fascinating, as it looks at the many beings who feel the immediacy of this problem and are participants in an ecosystem that doesn’t prioritize a human’s safety. Suzy, a head lifeguard, tells us about a nightmare she has about a shark attack; John, a father, and resident of Wellfleet, talks about how he wouldn’t let his surfer daughter in the water after Arthur’s death, and tells a town hall meeting that humans are not being protected. “After the Bite” is full of plenty of food for thought about an issue that it magnifies and treats with many distinct POVs. 

It’s not just through interviews, but with Meeropol’s following-around footage, like when we’re in Suzy’s car as she drives to work or on a boat with a group of fishermen venting about how global warming has altered the fishing scene, for both sharks and their livelihood. We even get a seal’s POV as a fisherman hawks chum into the blue; the camera is thrashed about, bumped into by leathery noses and whiskers. (Meeropol’s film has an important stance—it works to treat animals as equals.) In one concise passage after another, “After the Bite” looks at different players in this conundrum, putting a microscope on this community that has been polarized by terror.

For all of the moments in which “After the Bite” works to offer more shark information than “Jaws,” Meeropol and company do conjure their own special thrilling moment later on. A great white nemesis is finally shown close-up, nibbling on a large whale carcass. It’s a huge shark, and it conjures equal awe and fear as it slithers past boats (and one freaked-out guy, Noah, who is in a tank and gets real up close). The captured moment is as natural as possible, but with Meeropol’s work’s added context, it is bizarre and jarring. 

Meeropol’s editing volleys between many different tones, but they enrich each other—it makes clear how this beach culture can create joy (as seen in a shark-themed burlesque in nearby Provincetown) just as much as fear, evident in a captured moment where Suzy and her crew think they see a fin in the water. “After the Bite” doesn’t just capture a problem, but the life of the place that’s concerned about it. Like the best documentaries, it’s evident how the people interviewed in “After the Bite” have long had this issue on their minds, whether in conversation or their dreams. One of the most memorable tokens comes from surfer Dana, who runs the beach parking lot gate with no shoes on and jokes with drivers-by until he can partake in the shark-scattered waters. “Humankind must learn humility in the face of nature,” he casually states. We then get to see him paddle away from the beach, ready to surf, without a manmade entitlement for his safety. 

Now playing on Max. 

Time stretches and snaps like a rubber band in “Streetwise,” an atmospheric Chinese neo-noir thriller about Dong Zi (Li Jiuxiao), a young enforcer for Xu Jun (Yu Ailei), a cut-throat Sichuan debt collector. Dong Zi does almost everything Xu Jun tells him to do, with the notable exception of staying away from Jiu’er (Huang Miyi), a standoffish tattoo parlor owner. Even Dong Zi’s deadbeat ex-gangster dad (Yao Lu) tells Dong Zi to avoid Jiu’er, and that guy’s not exactly an upstanding citizen.

The main problem with Jiu’er and Dong Zi is also a problem with time and how it passes for the lost, uncomfortably close antiheroes of “Streetwise.” Because Jiu’er was once the ex-wife of Mr. Four (Sha Baoliang), a powerful local mobster, who was previously mentored by Xu Jun, and he owes Four serious money. And while Dong Zi is mostly loyal to both his father and his boss, he also can’t fully repay his two dads. So time moves at its own pace in “Streetwise,” though it doesn’t move naturalistically or in “real time.”

Writer/director Na Jiazuo arranges objects—and people, and places, and vehicles—with a keen eye for visual compositions, even when the people on-screen are only shuffling down alleyways and shooing away bored sex workers (“Want some fun?” “Have your own fun!”). Na also often cuts mercilessly from one scene to the next, leaving viewers to adjust their points of view as his drama frequently shifts its focus without ever really progressing. A sudden, anticlimactic ending feels simultaneously like too much and too little, which also seems weirdly fitting. “Streetwise” evaporates with its characters, who can’t picture the world beyond their riverside home.

“Streetwise” is not a slow movie, but it does move unhurriedly, and so do its doomed protagonists. They circle around and bump into each other but never really try to escape. What if you were simultaneously too comfortable and hemmed in by the people and the relationships that are obviously holding you back?

Dong Zi tends to be the focus of Na’s movie, but his problems are only symptomatic of his seedy, enchanting, isolated environment. Because Dong Zi’s father is the same kind of hustler as Xu Jun, albeit more slovenly and less motivated, and Xu Jun’s cut from the same cloth as Four, his abusive, faux-benevolent former pupil. So it stands to reason that Dong Zi can’t leave Jiu’er alone. She’s also stuck in place, but can’t bring herself to flee or take up more space. Dong Zi and Jiu’er aren’t happy together, but they do recognize themselves in each other.

Time moves deliberately, and its passage is eulogized through Na’s precise framing and hard cuts, the combination of which can sometimes feel jarring, like getting repeatedly splashed with ice water on a clammy day. Ambient noise on the soundtrack also reminds viewers of how lived-in and genuine this beautiful, melancholic hangout movie often feels.

“Streetwise” is one of a handful of recent mainland Chinese neo-noirs, a micro-trend that includes such recent standouts as the sweaty animated 2017 heist comedy “Have a Nice Day” and the neon-drenched 2019 crime drama “The Wild Goose Lake.” Na’s movie does not, however, feel like more of the same, despite some shared generic points of contact. Rather, “Streetwise” reflects its characters’ peculiar acceptance of lives that even they don’t believe they’ve chosen for themselves.

Like many great noir characters, Dong Xi and his fellow Sichuan residents are trapped by designs that they’re only so on top of. They’re not big fish in a small pond, but rather medium-sized fish in a shallow and slowly draining pool. As they circle the drain together, they recognize the beauty and strangeness of the circumstances that have brought them together. This place, these people, this life, it all feels so easy and familiar. How could it ever really end?

“Streetwise” isn’t the kind of movie you watch for the plot, which is mostly incidental. This is a small-scale drama whose emotions often feel overwhelming, though never bombastic and rarely familiar. Because while it is a film noir at heart, “Streetwise” is also very much about people who live in perpetual hope and denial. It’s a cynical movie, but it’s also gorgeous and morbidly funny.

Na packs so many rich details into every camera frame that it’s easy to overlook how time runs differently in “Streetwise,” even when the camera is hand-held or moving. He encourages viewers to loiter with his characters for longer than most of his contemporaries might, but Na also keeps “Streetwise” moving with an assured pace and a rhythm that’s both mysterious and assured. It’s just over 90 minutes long, but “Streetwise” still feels like an epic poem, shrunken down and sparingly polished for maximum effect.

Now playing in theaters. 

This very strange cultural moment in which filmmakers are fascinated with business rise-and-fall stories from the ‘80s and ‘90s (“Air,” “BlackBerry,” “Tetris,” and more) has brought us to beanie babies. Apple TV+’s “The Beanie Bubble” unpacks the fad that turned stuffed animals into collector’s items, making them an absolute obsession for millions. However, you’ll learn little more from “The Beanie Bubble” than you would from a Wikipedia page, and you’ll have slightly less fun doing so. A frustratingly inert film in every way, “The Beanie Bubble” has no POV and nothing to say. It’s a film that never really takes a stance, offers an opinion, or even sketches interesting characters, partly because of co-director Kristin Gore’s (daughter of the former Vice President) writing decision to jumble the chronology and tell this story via multiple narrators. Instead of offering multiple perspectives, these various voices blend into a dull hum in this skeleton of a film with absolutely no meat on its bones.

Zach Galifianakis plays Ty Warner, someone who will obviously betray his personal and professional relationships because there’s no movie otherwise. From the beginning, “The Beanie Bubble” plays with time and POV in baffling ways. It jumps back and forth between the early days of Warner’s eventual stuffed plaything empire and those that unfolded when Beanie Babies became a capitalist dream before crashing like the truck accident that scatters bright stuffed toys across the freeway in slo-mo behind the opening credits. It’s hard to discern initially, but this is basically the story of three women who get drawn into Ty’s toxic orbit. The desire to tell a story from multiple perspectives is ambitious, but it’s ultimately fatal when one realizes that none of these stories have been fleshed out beyond their basic character traits. And watching talented performers get stranded by this inert script can be incredibly frustrating.

The talented performers include Elizabeth Banks as Robbie, the woman who met Ty in the apartment building they shared and formed a quick friendship. After a few drunken conversations, Ty sold his deceased father’s antiques, and the two started a business together in 1986, Ty Inc. Of course, as the company expanded and Beanie Babies were developed in 1993, Ty pushed Robbie aside, and Banks sells the betrayal aspect of this business narrative well even as her character feels too much like a device for the other three. The constant jumping back and forth to early Ty Inc in the ‘80s and the breakout success of the ‘90s is like little more than a reason to pay for more pop music needle drops. And the weirdest thing is how much it drains the film of arguably it’s most important chapters, never illustrating how Ty/Robbie went from dreamers to cynical purveyors of mass consumption because the film is never allowed to gain momentum or track development. It’s one of the most bafflingly constructed scripts in years.

Sarah Snook of “Succession” fame makes out a little better as Sheila, who meets Ty in a moment when she’s not really looking for love or commerce, but ends up marrying him, and her daughters help design the Beanie Babies. Again, that Ty will eventually push Sheila and even his stepdaughters aside for financial gain is depressingly inevitable, but Snook gives her admirable best to another shallow character. So does Geraldine Viswanathan as Maya, the woman who made history in two ways (at least as presented in the film). At a toy fair, she tells a customer looking for sold-out Beanie Babies that they were a limited run, creating the demand for collectors that would drive the phenomenon. She also is credited with pioneering internet commerce, which was the lighter fluid for this craze, as collectors compared notes in the early days of chat rooms.

What story are we telling with “The Beanie Bubble”? No one ever answered that question. The end montage tries to make it about the American hustle for a new trend like NFTs or Pokemon, and yet we haven’t been watching that movie, just a series of scenes loosely based on things that possibly happened. “The Beanie Bubble” is another product from the corporate biopic factory line, but this one wasn’t examined enough for quality control before it was shipped. You should probably return it.

In theaters today. On Apple TV+ July 28^th.

Something is going bump in the night in Peter’s bedroom. Soon, those nightly bumps start to sound like a voice trapped in the wall. At first, that voice scares Peter, but as his parents grow more exasperated with his behavior, the voice in the wall becomes a source of comfort, a disembodied guardian angel of sorts, who, as Peter will soon realize, is not all that she seems and whose advice is not always so pure. 

While the strange and unusual world of Samuel Bodin’s “Cobweb” has ample enough unsettling energy thanks to Philip Lozano’s ominous cinematography, it fails to reach its scary ambitions. Jump scares feel less jumpy, and the twists are predictable. It’s a subtle creeper, but that’s about it, all ambiance and little substance—like a pot of water that never seems to boil. Watch as we might, something’s just not right, and the ingredients never come together into a fulfilling meal. 

The basic horror movie elements are present: We have Peter (Woody Norman), a bullied loner who hears things he shouldn’t and whose Halloween is ruined by two disconcerting parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr). There’s also a caring teacher named Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) who worries more about Peter’s wellbeing than his parents, and then there’s the otherworldly voice in the wall, whose character is a surprise I won’t spoil. Despite its supernatural creepiness, and yes, spiders, Bodin and writer Chris Thomas Devlin (who previously wrote the 2022 remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) have the skeletons of a horror movie, but not one that feels fleshed out. 

“Cobweb” is riddled with misdirection—things are thrown into the story but never really amount to anything. For instance, there’s the mystery of a missing trick-or-treater that Carol and Mark tell Peter is the reason he is not allowed to enjoy Halloween, and while it comes up once or twice, once that mystery is solved, it just kind of fizzles out. Bullies torture Peter, but no one really addresses them until Peter reacts violently, then they disappear again until the end for one (again, predictable) climactic showdown. In one of the funnier misfires, Miss Devine visits Carol and Mark to ask about Peter and notices Mark has a gaping slash down his forearm. “You’re bleeding,” she tells him. “I’m just doing some remodeling,” Mark responds smugly. “Loose nail. Don’t worry about it.” And just like that, the subject is dropped. He wipes a not-insignificant amount of blood off his arm and questions her. What was the purpose of the scene? To establish something’s off with Mark? That’s telegraphed in many other moments. Was it just another weird, stilted exchange to threaten Miss Devine (what a name) off of finding out what’s happening to Peter? The scene is just another off-beat moment in a movie that feels off-tempo.

“Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” episodes had more suspense than “Cobweb” sustains while getting its answers. It’s such a dull experience, I watched the movie twice in the hopes that maybe I missed something. I didn’t. I just watched a boring movie twice. Starr and Caplan have some fun acting out erratically, and Norman (who charmed audiences in “C’mon C’mon”) plays the part of poor haunted Peter well enough to earn viewers’ sympathy. But this is not enough to electrify “Cobweb” back to life. Coleman doesn’t get much chance to shine in her limited role, but much of the camera time is spent on Peter, often alone or alone in his thoughts as his parents yell at him for one reason or another. For all the “Shining”-like dolly shots, sometimes incomprehensible dark cinematography, and the scarier “Coraline”-like feelings that maybe your parents are not who they seem, “Cobweb” is a dud best dusted away.

Now playing in theaters. 

Li Ruijun is a young filmmaker—he’s about 40—who seems to have a very old soul. His new film, “Return to Dust,” has gotten him in trouble with the government in his native China, gained plaudits at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was in the running for a Silver Bear, and is now coming to the U.S., without the amendments that reportedly have been added to it in China to make its worldview more upbeat.

Every frame of this movie is exquisitely considered without seeming fussy or stagy. It helps, maybe, that the film is about humble people in humble settings. Li can frame them beautifully without prettifying poverty. Elia Kazan thought he did that in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”; one can disagree with this self-assessment while understanding why Kazan’s own judgment might have haunted him. In any case, Li’s directorial mojo means he can compose admirably without aestheticizing.

Set in Gansu, a rural section of China, “Return to Dust” tells a story almost as simple as its title. Ma Youtie, a small farmer with little to his name but a donkey, is placed in a sort of arranged marriage with Cao Guiyung. This couple seems to be approaching middle age, but their energy level is in the high-senior range, honestly. Both are socially awkward, and Cao is incontinent, a condition that manifests at terribly inconvenient times. Apparently, adult diapers are not a thing in Gansu.

So yes—if you’re looking for some real “counterprogramming” against “Barbie” for the weekend, this picture has you covered. But, seriously, actors Wu Renlin and Hai Qing, as Ma and Cao, respectively, play their characters like they’re unpeeling onions, so to speak. They are stiff and formal with each other; as they work Ma’s land, they lighten up and start smiling. They don’t have much to discuss, but they have a lot of labor and hardship to share. Their nights are quiet. “The old bottles in the eaves are whispering again,” Cao observes one evening. “Return to Dust” abounds in small poetic touches from the director and his lead characters.

Economically and emotionally marginalized people shunted to and fro by a largely indifferent society, if not outright hostile to them, and find some comfort and solace in each other while weathering the blows they’re obliged to take until the blows stop (they generally don’t), or the ones getting the blows give out—this, of course, was the stuff of many pictures from the not-quite-movement called Italian neo-realism. “Return to Dust” has more in common with films of that ilk than classic U.S. portraits of deprivation like “The Grapes of Wrath.” But the director departs from Western practice entirely by not making any overt move to tear at the viewer’s heartstrings. The music score is muted. The film avoids close-ups or blatantly manipulative montages. It’s quiet, but it’s not quite “Slow Cinema.”

Once Ma and Cao have successfully built a new house for themselves, more powerful forces begin to work. This apparently is where the Chinese government got concerned. An agent for the province has applied for Ma and Cao to move into an apartment building. “Where will I put my chickens?” Ma asks naively. A TV crew accompanies the couple to check out the new digs. The marrieds are more or less speechless, but not in the way the would-be hype team would like. And so on. Li doesn’t villainize the bureaucrats who upend the lives of his main characters, but he doesn’t have to; all he has to do is show how their attempts to “improve” life backfire. And so, the Chinese government attached a title card with a factitious plot wrap-up to the movie. The director’s original ending, a subtle expression of profound disappointment, is retained here.   

Now playing in theaters. 

It’s often hard to know who exactly the joke’s on in “Fear the Night,” an unpleasant home invasion thriller about a break-in at a bachelorette party in the California hills. Maggie Q stars as Tess, a disaffected military vet who must take out some white trash after they break into her family’s farmhouse, where she and her sisters Beth (Kat Foster) and Rose (Highdee Kuan) have gathered to celebrate Rose before she gets married.

Most of “Fear the Night” dwells on the ambient fear and annoyance that surrounds Tess as she and her fellow partygoers try to escape without being raped and/or killed. Eventually, it becomes hard to tell if the movie and its canned culture clash/battle of the sexes drama is just self-consciously tedious or also hatefully ungenerous (to the viewers, the actors, the characters, you name it). One character tellingly accuses the other of “slumming,” so it’s perhaps worth noting that “Fear the Night” was written and directed by playwright Neal LaBute, whose recent credits include last year’s bloodless erotic vampire pic “House of Darkness.”

With “Fear the Night,” LaBute clearly aims to push viewers’ buttons, especially using the oft-repeated threat of sexual violence. Some dramatic irony mildly re-casts the movie’s otherwise formulaic conflict in a harsher light, but not much gets complicated by this extra knowledge, especially not LaBute’s tin-eared dialogue nor his indifferent direction.

In theory, Tess and Beth’s relationship underlines the tension of the movie’s primary event: the siege of the family farm by a trio of woman-hating good ol’ boys, led by Bart (James Carpinello) and Perry (Travis Hammer). These guys raid the house and kill a key guest with a bow and arrow. Meanwhile, Tess tries to save the day while also not murdering her sister, who obviously knows more about why Perry and his friends have targeted their house. Beth is often breathtakingly irritating, whether she’s snippily asking Tess not to curse in front of her daughter or off-handedly telling Tess to relax and have a drink, despite knowing that Tess has been sober for some weeks.

Tess’s wounded warrior schtick suggests that some things are sacred, despite the drama’s prevailing moral relativity. Other character tics and tropes are either sent up and/or negligibly complicated. It’s sometimes hard to see a difference when so many women in this movie reflect LaBute’s disinterest in developing believable characters. Rose’s guests all talk like helpless, horny caricatures, while Perry and the gang only talk about what these women “deserve,” especially rape.

That omnipresent threat isn’t necessarily unrealistic, nor is Beth and her friends’ by-the-numbers sassiness. Rather, a general lack of imagination makes “Fear the Night” a chore to watch, especially given how thin so much of Tess’s dialogue tends to be. Because if she’s the audience’s surrogate, then it’s hard to imagine that there’s a point to this much nudge-nudge genre pandering, not when the bachelorettes lay into an attacker in front of a big “Same Penis Forever” party banner, nor during Perry and Bart’s frequent and empty taunts. At one point, a bad guy asks a bad girl if she’s going to let “a black chick” tell her what to do. The black chick in question, played by Ito Aghayere, somehow doesn’t respond until she flirtatiously and laboriously offers to have oral sex with one of the attackers. Everything is bait in “Fear the Night,” but none of it is worth taking.

“Fear the Night” might have succeeded as a cheap but thrilling work of post-feminist revanchism. Some bloody violence does not, however, add much to the movie’s empty you-go-girl rallying around Tess, which is as deadly serious and unconvincing as “Fear the Night” gets. A lot of dead air and placeholder repartee also suggests that there’s no great distinction to be made between the type of movie that LaBute might be sending up and the one he wound up making.

In a tellingly awkward establishing scene, LaBute struggles to establish that Tess has an edgy sense of humor. She describes herself to Beth’s friends as a teacher, or “Mr. Miyagi with tits.” Silence. Tess continues anyway: “What’s not landing for you, Miyagi or tits?” Because she’s Asian-American, and they’re not, right? This gag’s tone is ostensibly tongue-in-cheek, but that two-part line is flop-sweat clammy.

“Fear the Night” often feels like it was made by artists who understand the type of movie that they’re making but maybe don’t really care enough about making it, either as a by-the-numbers genre exercise or a repudiation of its fans and their need for pseudo-enlightened catharsis. Rather than pick a lane, Labute and the gang cruise down a flat, weirdly empty stretch of well-trod road. Good luck to both the curious and unsuspecting viewers who follow them.

Now playing in theaters.