Buzz Blog

Between the Temples ***
Director/co-writer Nathan Silver and co-writer C. Mason Wells mix a little quintessential Sundance quirk into their throwback New Hollywood vibe, resulting in a dramedy that’s enjoyable, awkward, and enjoyably awkward. Jason Schwartzman plays Benjamin Gottlieb, a cantor for an upstate New York synagogue who has lost his will to sing—and much of his will to live—after the death of his wife. While nursing his sorrows in a bar, he runs into Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane), his widowed childhood music teacher, who decides to re-embrace her Jewish heritage by preparing for the bat mitzvah she never had. Harold & Maude provides the most obvious touchstone, and Silver aims for an aesthetic that evokes grainy 1970s film stock and jagged editing rhythms that capture the chaos of Benjamin’s life. The narrative does get a little over-stuffed with business at times, as though the writers are looking for individually funny scenes—like a visit to a Catholic Church, or an ill-fated J-Date encounter—even if they don’t particularly serve the central relationship. Schwartzman and Kane do have a nice chemistry, though, building to a shabbat dinner where the overlapping dialogue and increasingly frantic pacing build to an impressive crescendo. Maybe it’s a little on the messy side, but then again, the kind of movies to which it’s paying homage were never about being neat and tidy. Available Aug. 23 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (R)

Blink Twice ***1/2
You’ll be seeing a lot of references—either explicitly or obliquely—to another specific film as a major influence on Zoë Kravitz’s feature directing debut, but dismissing it as a knock-off feels deeply unfair to how accomplished this psychological thriller turns out to be. Kravitz also co-wrote the screenplay (with E.T. Feigenbaum) about a cater waiter named Frida (Naomie Ackie) who literally stumbles into the social circle of tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), then impulsively jets off with her best pal Jess (Alia Shawkat) to King’s private island. What unfolds there, as Frida and Jess interact with King and his other guests (including Christian Slater, Adria Arjona and Haley Joel Osment), is best left discovered rather than described, with a social subtext that feels far more complicated than simple one-to-one metaphor. But beyond all that, it’s just a hell of a great movie to watch and listen to, rich with bold production design choices, thrilling editing by Kathryn J. Schubert and a wonderfully evocative sound design. The plotting is far from airtight, and I’m not entirely convinced that the coda works beyond being a kind of obvious crowd-pleaser. However, when a filmmaker has you giggling at the effectiveness of even the most minor choices—like how to present the movie’s title on screen—you’ve simply got to give it up to them as more than a copycat. Available Aug. 23 in theaters. (R)

The Crow **
In theory, it sounds like a good idea to provide a lot of emotional back-story for a relationship that makes your protagonist willing to go (literally) to hell, but this latest story loosely based on the James O’Barr comic book takes a hell of a long time to get to the supernatural thriller stuff that gets butts in seats. This version’s Eric (Bill Skarsgård) is a troubled, solitary, tatted-up soul whose stint in rehab includes meeting Shelly (FKA Twigs), who’s on the run from evil immortal Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston); when Roeg’s goons succeed at killing Shelly, Eric too dies, only to return as a vengeance-seeking immortal himself. Before all that, however, the screenplay by Zach Baylin and William Josef Schneider dwells on the blissful romantic days shared by Eric and Shelly, to the point that you might start to wonder if you’re watching the right movie. The two lead actors, unfortunately, are much more effective at conveying “damaged” than they are at conveying “deeply in love,” so the interminable prologue ends up feeling awfully tedious. Eventually, director Rupert Sanders (2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman) gets to the meat of the matter, though a subplot involving Eric’s damaged body painfully reorganizing itself does get short shrift, leading to a climactic orgy of creative carnage that takes the idea of “operatic violence” way too literally. By that point, you might have checked out regarding what Eric is actually killing for. Available Aug. 23 in theaters. (R)

Good One ***1/2
Here’s Exhibit A in why I don’t like to insta-react to Sundance screenings: It took a little time for me to full wrap my head around what writer/director India Donaldson was aiming for in this restrained character study. That central character is 17-year-old New Yorker Sam (Lily Collias), who’s taking a holiday-weekend camping trip that’s initially planned to be with her remarried-with-a-toddler father (James Le Gros), her dad’s long-time friend/underemployed actor Matt (Danny McCarthy) and Matt’s own teen son, but takes on a different dynamic when Matt’s son bails on the trip. What follows has been compared to the work of Kelly Reichardt—not surprising, given the part of the premise that resembles Old Joy—with a subtle, observational vibe rather than big, dramatic plot points. Donaldson emphasizes the way Sam’s feminine energy affects the dynamic of the trio, while also making it clear that she’s the most competent and level-headed of the three of them. My initial reservations were that such qualities gave Sam too little of a character arc, but the realizations Sam comes to over the course of the trip, particularly about her father and how much he can be trusted with her hard truths, feel even more insinuating without being underlined. Collias offers up a lead performance that’s charismatic without ever being showy, finding a simple strength in deciding that the sob stories of the men in her life don’t have to drag her down. Available Aug. 23 at Broadway Center Cinemas. (R)

Incoming **1/2
There’s a long tradition of horny teen comedies that writer/directors Dave and John Chernin (TV veterans of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Mick), but the most interesting thing here turns out to have nothing to do with that idea. Primarily, it’s a tale of four buddies—Benj (Mason Thames), Eddie (Ramon Reed), Connor (Raphael Alejandro) and Koosh (Bardia Seiri)—entering their freshman year of high school, and trying to establish their identities mostly on one crazy night. The focus is mostly on Benj and his crush on his older sister’s best friend (Isabella Ferreira), which is charming enough, if truncated by being forced to share the just-over-80-minute running time with the other subplots. Not much of it is particularly funny or creative, though—except the material focused on Bobby Canavale as the school’s freshly-separated science teacher, and his tragically overeager attempts to be the “cool teacher,” including crashing a student party. There’s an entire compelling narrative to be teased out of this guy, who also genuinely seems like he wants to be a good teacher, and Canavale nails every moment. And then, unfortunately, the narrative returns to the kids, and a forced outrageousness that feels far less truthful—and less entertaining—than the grown-ass man who thinks they have it better than he does. Available Aug. 23 via Netflix. (R)

The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat **1/2
In the age of streaming-service limited series adaptation of novels, it’s worth asking why some books are turned into feature films when their premise just doesn’t let itself to that approach. This adaptation of Edward Kelsey Moore’s novel by director/co-writer Tina Mabry (with a script co-credited to a pseudonymous Gina Prince-Bythewood as “Cee Marcellus”) follows a trio of Black women friends—Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), Clarice (Uzo Aduba) and Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan)—from their teenage years in 1960s Indiana until the verge of their 50s, as they deal with health scares, relationship difficulties and grief. The three main actors are predictably solid, as are their younger counterparts (Kyanna Simone, Abigail Achiri and Tati Gabrielle, respectively), digging into the melodramatic storylines in a way that doesn’t feel simplistic or exploitative. The problem is that this is a concept based on the idea of decades spent building a history together, something that’s much easier to accomplish in the pacing of reading a book; here, the filmmakers have to race from one plot development to the next, and back and forth in time, in a way that doesn’t give those developments any time to breathe or build an emotional resonance. This is a story that begs for an episodic structure, so that individual life milestones can have their moment of focus, and the way these women support one another through those milestones can be the story, rather than moving immediately to, “Okay, now it’s my turn to have a crisis.” Available Aug. 23 via Hulu. (PG-13)