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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny; Nimona; Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken and more
Blue Jean ***
“Not everything is political,” high-school gym teacher Jean Newman (Rosy McEwen) says to her girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) early in writer/director Georgia Oakley’s feature, but the film’s setting of 1988 England captures a moment—unfortunately being repeated right now—when for gay people simply trying to be allowed to exist, everything was 100 percent political. The story follows Jean as she tries to keep her head down and avoid the possibility that being outed could cost her her job, a prospect that seems more immediate when one of her young students, Lois (Lucy Halliday), shows up at the gay bar Jean frequents.
New musical features great songs and a great story that may not be ideal together
It’s easy for what you know about the circumstances behind a creative work to shape the way you think about it. In the case of the new musical Relative Space, part of the show’s marketing-friendly backstory tells us that the show’s songs—co-written by teenage singer/songwriter Kjersti Long—were created first, and that the narrative by Utah playwright Melissa Leilani Larson was constructed around that pre-existing musical material.
Air Guitar championships, new music from Leetham, Granary Live opens
Air Guitar Championship @ Aces High Saloon 6/17
Do you have epic, shredding air-guitar skills that have gone unappreciated? Fret no more, your time has come!
The Flash, Elemental, Extraction 2, It Ain't Over and more.
Chile ’76 **1/2
Co-writer/director Manuela Martelli certainly makes it clear early on that she’s fashioning this psychological/political drama as a horror movie, but the thing about horror movies is that it helps if eventually there’s some sort of payoff. The title places the action early in the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, when Carmen Orellana (Aline Küppenheim)—the wife of a successful doctor in Santiago, Chile—heads to the family beach house to oversee a renovation.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Flamin' Hot, Mending the Line
Flamin’ Hot **1/2
Evidence seems to suggest that this “inspiring true story” might not actually be true, but creatively, the bigger problem is how little it does with the “inspiring true story” narrative template. It’s based on the life of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a Mexican-American high-school dropout who tries to turn his life around, first by getting a janitorial job at the local Southern California Frito-Lay plant in the mid-1980s, then by (according to him) coming up with the concept for spicy snack foods that became a marketing sensation.
Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse, Sanctuary, The Boogeyman, Shooting Stars
The Boogeyman ***
From the Department of Two Things Can Both Be True: 1) A movie might be kind of tedious and predictable from a narrative standpoint, and 2) that same movie might show enough style and precision in its directing that it keeps you perked up in your chair. This extremely loose adaptation of a 50-year-old Stephen King short story deals with a family—therapist Will Harper (Chris Messina) and his daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair)—who are still reeling from the recent death of Will’s wife when they come under attack from a mysterious supernatural force.
