Movie and TV Reviews

Reviews for New Releases: April 7 – May 26, 2023

32 Sounds (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)
1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed (Photo courtesy of HBO)
About My Father (Photo by Dan Anderson/Lionsgate)
Afwaah (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)
Agent (Photo courtesy of Goldmines Telefilms)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (Photo by Dana Hawley/Lionsgate)
Beau Is Afraid (Photo by Takashi Seida/A24)
Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World (Photo by Alan Markfield/Affirm Films)
Book Club: The Next Chapter (Photo by Riccardo Ghilardi/Fifth Season LLC/Focus Features)
Carmen (Photo courtesy of Goalpost Pictures/Sony Pictures Classics)
To Catch a Killer (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
Cherry (Photo by Damien Steck/Entertainment Squad)
Chevalier (Photo by Larry Horricks/Searchlight Pictures)
The End of Sex (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)
Evil Dead Rise (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
Fast X (Photo by Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)
Gumraah (Photo courtesy of Pen Marudhar Entertainment)
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (Photo by Christopher Raphael/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)
Hachiko (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Photo courtesy of Neon)
Hypnotic (Photo courtesy of Hypnotic Film Holdings LLC/Ketchup Entertainment)
IB 71 (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)
Judy Blume Forever (Photo courtesy of Prime Video)
The Kerala Story (Photo courtesy of Sunshine Pictures)
Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)
Knights of the Zodiac (Photo by David Lukacs/ Stage 6 Films and Toei Animation)
The Little Mermaid (Photo by Giles Keyte/Disney Enterprises Inc.)
Little Richard: I Am Everything (Photo courtesy of CNN Films/Magnolia Pictures)
Lost Love (Photo courtesy of Illume Films and Imagi Crystal)
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story (Photo courtesy of May Pang Collection/Iconic Events)
Love Again (Photo by Liam Daniel/Screen Gems)
The Machine (Photo by Aleksandar Letic/Screen Gems)
Mafia Mamma (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)
Money Back Guarantee (Photo courtesy of Zashko Films)
Nefarious (Photo courtesy of Soli Deo Gloria Releasing)
One Day as a Lion (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
One True Loves (Photo courtesy of The Avenue)
Over My Dead Body (Photo courtesy of Illume Films and Imagi Crystal Studio)
Paint (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
Personality Crisis: One Night Only (Photo courtesy of Showtime)
Pichaikkaran 2 (Photo courtesy of Vijay Anan Film Corporation)
Polite Society (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus Features)
The Pope’s Exorcist (Photo by Jonathan Hession/Screen Gems)
Ravanasura (Photo courtesy of Abhishek Pictures)
Renfield (Photo by Michele K. Short/Universal Pictures)
Ride On (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA and Shanghai Pictures)
Robots (Photo courtesy of Decal/Neon)
Say I Do to Me (Photo courtesy of Edko Films Ltd.)
Shaakauntalam (Photo courtesy of AA Films)
Showing Up (Photo by Allyson Riggs/A24)
Sisu (Photo by Antti Rastivo/Lionsgate)
Somewhere in Queens (Photo by Mary Cybulski/Roadside Attractions)
The Starling Girl (Photo by Brian Lannin/Bleecker Street)
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Image courtesy of Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures)
Super Punjabi (Photo courtesy of Eveready Pictures)
Sweetwater (Photo by Tony Rivetti Jr. SMPSP/Briarcliff Entertainment)
Unconditional (Photo courtesy of Prisca Films)
Yesterday Once More (Photo courtesy of Wanda Pictures)
You Hurt My Feelings (Photo by Jeong Park/A24)

Complete List of Reviews

1BR — horror

2/1 — drama

2 Graves in the Desert — drama

2 Hearts — drama

2 Minutes of Fame — comedy

5 Years Apart — comedy

7 Days (2022) — comedy

8 Billion Angels — documentary

8-Bit Christmas — comedy

The 8th Night — horror

9 Bullets (formerly titled Gypsy Moon) — drama

9to5: The Story of a Movement — documentary

12 Hour Shift — horror

12 Mighty Orphans — drama

17 Blocks — documentary

21mu Tiffin — drama

32 Sounds — documentary

37 Seconds — drama

65 — sci-fi/action

76 Days — documentary

80 for Brady — comedy

88 (2023) — drama

The 355 — action

The 420 Movie (2020) — comedy

499 — docudrama

1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed — documentary

2040 — documentary

7500 — drama

Abandoned (2022) — horror

Abe — drama

About Endlessness — comedy/drama

About My Father (2023) — comedy

Above Suspicion (2021) — drama

The Accursed (2022) — horror

A Chiara — drama

Acidman — drama

An Action Hero — action/comedy

The Addams Family 2 — animation

Adverse — drama

Advocate — documentary

The Affair (2021) (formerly titled The Glass Room) — drama

After Class (formerly titled Safe Spaces) — comedy/drama

After Parkland — documentary

Aftershock (2022) — documentary

Aftersun (2022) — drama

After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News — documentary

After Yang — sci-fi/drama

Afwaah — action

Ailey — documentary

Air (2023) — drama

AKA Jane Roe — documentary

Algorithm: Bliss — sci-fi/horror

Alice (2022) — drama

Alice, Darling — drama

Alienoid — sci-fi/action

Aline (2021) — drama

All Day and a Night — drama

All I Can Say — documentary

All In: The Fight for Democracy — documentary

All Light, Everywhere — documentary

All My Friends Hate Me — comedy/drama

All My Life (2020) — drama

All My Puny Sorrows — drama

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) — action

All Roads to Pearla (formerly titled Sleeping in Plastic) — drama

All That Breathes — documentary

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — documentary

All the Bright Places — drama

Almost Love (2020) (also titled Sell By) — comedy/drama

Almost Love (2022) — drama

Alone (2020) (starring Jules Willcox) — horror

Alone (2020) (starring Tyler Posey) — horror

Alone Together (2022) — comedy/drama

Alpha Rift — action

The Alpinist — documentary

Amalgama — comedy/drama

Amazing Grace (2018) — documentary

Ambulance (2022) — action

American Fighter — drama

American Gadfly — documentary

American Murderer — drama

An American Pickle — comedy

American Street Kid — documentary

American Underdog — drama

American Woman (2020) — drama

Amigos (2023) — action

Ammonite — drama

Amsterdam (2022) — drama

Amulet — horror

Anaïs in Love — comedy/drama

The Ancestral — horror

And Then We Danced — drama

Annette — musical

Another Round — drama

Antebellum — horror

Anthony — drama

Anth the End — drama

Antlers (2021) — horror

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Apocalypse ’45 — documentary

The Apollo — documentary

The Arbors — sci-fi/horror

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. — comedy/drama

The Argument — comedy

Armageddon Time — drama

Army of the Dead (2021) — horror

Artemis Fowl — fantasy

The Artist’s Wife — drama

Ascension (2021) — documentary

Ask for Jane — drama

Ask No Questions — documentary

As of Yet — comedy/drama

The Assistant (2020) — drama

Athena (2022) — action

At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal — documentary

Athlete A — documentary

Attack of the Murder Hornets — documentary

Avatar: The Way of Water — sci-fi/action

Aye Zindagi (2022) — drama

Azor — drama

Baby God — documentary

Babylon (2022) — drama

Baby Ruby — drama

Babysplitters — comedy

Babyteeth — drama

Bacurau — drama

Bad Axe — documentary

Bad Behaviour (2023) — comedy/drama

Bad Boys for Life — action

Bad Detectives (formerly titled Year of the Detectives) — drama

Bad Education (2020) — drama

The Bad Guys (2022) — animation

Badhaai Do — comedy/drama

Bad Therapy (formerly titled Judy Small) — comedy/drama

Ballad of a White Cow — drama

Banana Split — comedy

Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art — documentary

A Banquet — horror

The Banshees of Inisherin — comedy/drama

Barbarian (2022) — horror

Barbarians (2022) — horror

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar — comedy

The Batman — sci-fi/action

The Battle at Lake Changjin — action

The Battle at Lake Changjin II — action

Beanpole — drama

Beast (2022) — horror

Beast Beast — drama

Beastie Boys Story — documentary

The Beatles: Get Back — documentary

The Beatles: Get Back—The Rooftop Concert — documentary

Beau Is Afraid — drama

Beba — documentary

Becoming — documentary

Behind You — horror

Being the Ricardos — drama

Belfast (2021) — drama

Belle (2021) — animation

Beneath Us — horror

Benedetta (also titled Blessed Virgin) — drama

Benediction (2021) — drama

Bergman Island (2021) — drama

Best Sellers (2021) — comedy/drama

The Beta Test — comedy/drama

Better Nate Than Ever — comedy/drama

Bhediya — horror/comedy

Bheed — drama

Bholaa — action

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 — horror/comedy

Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World — drama

Big Time Adolescence — comedy/drama

The Big Ugly — drama

Billie (2020) — documentary

Bill & Ted Face the Music — sci-fi/comedy

The Binge — comedy

Bingo Hell — horror

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) — fantasy/action

Bitterbrush — documentary

Black Adam — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Black as Night — horror

Black Bear — drama

Blackbird (2020) — drama

Black Box (2020) — horror

Black Box (2021) — drama

Black Is King — musical

Blacklight — action

Black Magic for White Boys — comedy

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — sci-fi/fantasy/action

The Black Phone — horror

Black Widow (2021) — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Blast Beat — drama

The Blazing World (2021) — horror

Blessed Child — documentary

Blithe Spirit (2020) — comedy

Blonde (2022) — drama

Blood and Money — drama

Blood Conscious — horror

Blood on Her Name — drama

Bloodshot (2020) — sci-fi/action

Bloodthirsty (2021) — horror

Bloody Hell — horror

Blow the Man Down — drama

Blue Bayou (2021) — drama

Blue’s Big City Adventure — live-action/animation/musical

Blue Story — drama

Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island — horror

The Bob’s Burgers Movie — animation

Bodies Bodies Bodies — horror

Body Cam — horror

The Body Fights Back — documentary

Bố Già (Dad, I’m Sorry) — comedy/drama

Bones and All — drama

Boogie — drama

Book Club: The Next Chapter — comedy

The Booksellers — documentary

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm — comedy

The Boss Baby: Family Business — animation

Both Sides of the Blade (formerly titled Fire) — drama

The Box (2022) — drama

Box of Rain — documentary

Boyfriend for Hire — drama

The Boys (first episode) — fantasy/action

Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Brahms: The Boy II — horror

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power — documentary

Breaking (2022) (formerly titled 892) — drama

Breaking Fast — comedy

Breaking News in Yuba County — comedy

Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists — documentary

Brian and Charles — comedy/drama

The Broken Hearts Gallery — comedy

Broker (2022) — drama

Bros (2022) — comedy

Brothers by Blood (formerly titled The Sound of Philadelphia) — drama

Browse — drama

Bruiser (2022) — drama

Brut Force — drama

Buckley’s Chance — drama

Buffaloed — comedy

Bullet Train (2022) — action

Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn — documentary

Bunker (2023) — horror

Burden (2020) — drama

Burning Cane — drama

The Burning Sea — action

Burn It All — drama

The Burnt Orange Heresy — drama

Cactus Jack — horror

Cagefighter — drama

Calendar Girl (2022) — documentary

Call Jane — drama

The Call of the Wild (2020) — live-action/animation

A Call to Spy — drama

Call Your Mother — documentary

Candyman (2021) — horror

Cane River — drama

Capone — drama

The Card Counter — drama

Carmen (2023) — drama

Carmilla — drama

Carol & Johnny — documentary

Casa Susanna — documentary

Castle in the Ground — drama

Catch the Bullet — action

Catch the Fair One — drama

Cat Daddies — documentary

Catherine Called Birdy — comedy/drama

The Cellar (2022) — horror

Censor (2021) — horror

Centigrade — drama

Cha Cha Real Smooth — comedy/drama

Champions (2023) — comedy

Chance the Rapper’s Magnificent Coloring World — documentary

Changing the Game (2021) — documentary

Chasing the Present — documentary

Chasing Wonders — drama

Chehre — drama

Cherry (2023) — comedy/drama

Chevalier (2023) — drama

Chick Fight — comedy

Children of the Mist — documentary

Children of the Sea — animation

Chinese Doctors — drama

A Christmas Story Christmas — comedy

Chop Chop — horror

Circus of Books — documentary

Cirkus (2022) — comedy

City of Lies — drama

Clara Sola — drama

Clean (2022) — drama

The Cleaner (2021) — drama

The Clearing (2020) — horror

Clementine — drama

Clerks III — comedy

Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021) — live-action/animation

Cliff Walkers (formerly titled Impasse) — drama

The Climb (2020) — comedy/drama

Close (2022) — drama

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun — documentary

Cloudy Mountain (2021) — action

Clover — drama

C’mon C’mon — drama

Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert — documentary

Cocaine Bear — action/comedy

CODA — comedy/drama

Coded Bias (formerly titled Code for Bias) — documentary

Code Name: Tiranga — action

Coffee & Kareem — comedy

Collective — documentary

Color Out of Space — sci-fi/horror

The Columnist — horror

Come as You Are (2020) — comedy

Come Play — horror

Come to Daddy — horror

Come True — sci-fi/drama

Coming 2 America — comedy

Compartment No. 6 — drama

Confess, Fletch — comedy

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — horror

Connect (2022) — horror

Console Wars — documentary

The Contractor (2022) (formerly titled Violence of Action) — action

Copshop (2021) — action

The Cordillera of Dreams — documentary

Corsage — drama

Count Basie: Through His Own Eyes — documentary

A Couple (2022) — drama

The Courier (2021) (formerly titled Ironbark) — drama

Cow (2022) — documentary

The Craft: Legacy — horror

Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words — documentary

Creed III — drama

Creem: America’s Only Rock’n’Roll Magazine — documentary

Crimes of the Future — horror

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution — documentary

Crisis (2021) — drama

Critical Thinking — drama

Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan — documentary

The Croods: A New Age — animation

Crown Vic — drama

CRSHD — comedy

Cruella — comedy/drama

Cry Macho — drama

Cryptozoo — animation

The Cursed (2022) (formerly titled Eight for Silver) — horror

The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw — horror

The Curse of La Patasola — horror

Cut Throat City — drama

Cyrano (2021) — musical

Da 5 Bloods — drama

Dada (2023) — drama

Daddy Issues (2020) — comedy

Dads — documentary

Dangerous Lies — drama

The Daphne Project — comedy

Dara of Jasenovac — drama

Darby and the Dead (formerly titled Darby Harper Wants You to Know) — fantasy/comedy

The Dark Divide — drama

Dark Web: Cicada 3301 — action/comedy

Dasara (2023) — action

Dating & New York — comedy

Dave Not Coming Back — documentary

Dawn Raid — documentary

A Day in the Life of America — documentary

Days of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont — documentary

Days of the Whale — drama

DC League of Super-Pets — animation

A Deadly Legend — horror

Deadstream — horror

Dear Evan Hansen — musical

Dear Santa — documentary

Death in Texas — drama

Death of a Telemarketer — comedy

Death on the Nile (2022) — drama

Decade of Fire — documentary

Decibel (2022) — action

Decision to Leave — drama

The Deeper You Dig — horror

Deep Water (2022) — drama

The Deer King — animation

Deerskin — comedy

The Delicacy — documentary

Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil — documentary

Demonic (2021) — horror

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie: Mugen Train — animation

Denise Ho—Becoming the Song — documentary

Descendant (2022) — documentary

Desolation Center — documentary

Desperados — comedy

The Desperate Hour (formerly titled Lakewood) — drama

The Devil Below (formerly titled Shookum Hills) — horror

The Devil Conspiracy — horror

Devil’s Night: Dawn of the Nain Rouge — horror

Devil’s Peak — drama

Devil’s Pie—D’Angelo — documentary

The Devil You Know (2022) — drama

Devotion (2022) — drama

Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy — documentary

Die in a Gunfight — action

Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over — documentary

Disappearance at Clifton Hill — drama

The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu — comedy/drama

The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood — comedy

Disclosure (2020) — documentary

The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins — fantasy

Diving With Dolphins — documentary

The Djinn — horror

Dobaaraa — sci-fi/drama

Doctor G — comedy/drama

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Dog (2022) — comedy/drama

The Dog Doc — documentary

Dolittle — live-action/animation

Dolphin Island — drama

Dolphin Reef — documentary

Do Not Reply — horror

Don’t Breathe 2 — horror

Don’t Look Back (2020) (formerly titled Good Samaritan) — horror

Don’t Look Up (2021) — comedy

Don’t Worry Darling — sci-fi/drama

The Doorman (2020) — action

Dosed — documentary

Double XL — comedy/drama

Downhill — comedy

Downton Abbey: A New Era — drama

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero — animation

Dream Horse — drama

Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel — documentary

Dreamland (2020) (starring Margot Robbie) — drama

Drishyam 2 (2022) — drama

Drive My Car (2021) — drama

Driven to Abstraction — documentary

Driveways — drama

Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America — documentary

The Dry — drama

The Duke (2021) — comedy/drama

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves — fantasy/action

Dune (2021) — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Duran Duran: A Hollywood High — documentary

Duty Free — documentary

Earwig — horror

The East (2021) — drama

Easter Sunday (2022) — comedy

Easy Does It — comedy

Eggs Over Easy — documentary

Eiffel — drama

El Cuartito — comedy/drama

Elephant (2020) — documentary

Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things — documentary

Ellis — documentary

Elvis (2022) — drama

Emancipation (2022) — drama

Embattled — drama

Emergency (2022) — comedy

Emergency Declaration — action

Emily (2022) — drama

Emily the Criminal — drama

Emma (2020) — comedy/drama

The Emoji Story (formerly titled Picture Character) — documentary

Empire of Light — drama

Encanto — animation

Endangered Species (2021) — drama

End of Sentence — drama

The End of Sex — comedy

Enemies of the State (2021) — documentary

Enforcement (formerly titled Shorta) — drama

Enhanced (2021) (also titled Mutant Outcasts) — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Enola Holmes — drama

Entwined (2020) — horror

Enys Men — horror

EO — drama

Epicentro — documentary

Escape From Mogadishu — drama

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions — horror

Escape the Field — horror

The Eternal Daughter — drama

The Eternal Memory — documentary

Eternals (2021) — sci-fi/fantasy/action

The Etruscan Smile (also titled Rory’s Way) — drama

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga — comedy

Everything Everywhere All at Once — sci-fi/action

Everything Under Control — action/comedy

Evil Dead Rise — horror

Evil Eye (2020) — horror

The Evil Next Door — horror

The Exiles (2022) — documentary

Exit Plan — drama

Extraction (2020) — action

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) — drama

F3: Fun and Frustration — comedy

F9: The Fast Saga — action

The Fabelmans — drama

Facing Monsters — documentary

Fall (2022) — drama

A Fall From Grace — drama

Falling (2021) — drama

Falling for Figaro — comedy/drama

The Fallout — drama

Family Camp — comedy

Family Matters (2022) — drama

Family Squares — comedy/drama

Fancy Dance (2023) — drama

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore — fantasy

Faraaz — drama

Farewell Amor — drama

Fast X — action

Fatal Affair (2020) — drama

Fatale — drama

The Father (2020) — drama

Father Stu — drama

Fatima (2020) — drama

Fatman — comedy

Fear (2023) — horror

Fear of Rain — horror

The Feast (2021) — horror

The Fight (2020) — documentary

Finch — sci-fi/drama

Finding Kendrick Johnson — documentary

Finding You (2021) — drama

Firebird (2021) — drama

Fire Island (2022) — comedy

Fire of Love (2022) — documentary

Firestarter (2022) — horror

First Cow — drama

First Date (2021) — comedy

The Five Devils — sci-fi/drama

Flag Day — drama

Flashback (2021) (formerly titled The Education of Frederick Fitzell) — drama

Flee — documentary/animation

Flipped (2020) — comedy

Flux Gourmet — comedy/drama

Force of Nature (2020) — action

The Forever Purge — horror

The Forgiven (2022) — drama

For They Know Not What They Do — documentary

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko — animation

The Forty-Year-Old Version — comedy

Four Good Days — drama

Four Kids and It — fantasy

Four Samosas — comedy

Fourth of July — comedy/drama

Framing John DeLorean — documentary

Frank and Penelope — drama

Freaky — horror

Freedom’s Path — drama

Free Guy — sci-fi/action

Free Skate — drama

The French Dispatch — comedy

French Exit — comedy/drama

Fresh (2022) — horror

Friendsgiving — comedy

From the Hood to the Holler — documentary

From the Vine — comedy/drama

Full River Red — action

Funhouse (2021) — horror

Funny Pages — comedy/drama

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down — documentary

Gaia (2021) — horror

Game of Death (2020) — horror

Ganden: A Joyful Land — documentary

Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero — documentary

Gandhi Godse – Ek Yudh — drama

Gap Year (2020) — documentary

The Garden Left Behind — drama

The Gasoline Thieves — drama

The Gateway (2021) — drama

Gay Chorus Deep South — documentary

The Gentlemen — action

Get Duked! (formerly titled Boyz in the Wood) — comedy

Get Gone — horror

Ghostbusters: Afterlife — comedy/horror

The Ghost of Peter Sellers — documentary

Ghosts of the Ozarks — horror

Gigi & Nate — drama

A Girl From Mogadishu — drama

A Girl Missing — drama

Give Me Five (2022) — sci-fi/comedy/drama

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — comedy/drama

A Glitch in the Matrix — documentary

The God Committee — drama

God Save the Queens (2022) — comedy/drama

God’s Country (2022) — drama

God’s Creatures — drama

God’s Time — comedy

Godzilla vs. Kong — sci-fi/fantasy/action

The Go-Go’s — documentary

Gold (2022) — drama

Golden Arm — comedy

Goldie — drama

Gone in the Night (2022) (formerly titled The Cow) — drama

Good Girl Jane — drama

The Good House — comedy/drama

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande — comedy/drama

The Good Neighbor (2022) — drama

Good Night Oppy — documentary

The Good Nurse — drama

A Good Person — drama

Good Posture — comedy

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind — documentary

The Grandmaster of Kung Fu — action

Grasshoppers — drama

Greed — comedy/drama

The Green Knight — horror/fantasy

Greenland — sci-fi/action

Gretel & Hansel — horror

Greyhound — drama

The Grudge (2020) — horror

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Guest of Honour — drama

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio — animation

The Guilty (2021) — drama

A Guilty Conscience (2023) — drama

Gumraah — drama

Gunda — documentary

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant — action

Hachiko (2023) — drama

Half Brothers — comedy

The Half of It — comedy

Halloween Ends — horror

Halloween Kills — horror

Halloween Party (2020) — horror

Hannah Ha Ha — drama

Happening (2021) — drama

Happiest Season — comedy

The Harder They Fall (2021) — action

Hard Luck Love Song — drama

Hatching — horror

The Hater (2022) — comedy/drama

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics — documentary

Hawa (2022) — horror

Haymaker (2021) — drama

Healing From Hate: Battle for the Soul of a Nation — documentary

He Dreams of Giants — documentary

Held — horror

Hell Hath No Fury (2021) — action

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful — documentary

Here After (2021) (formerly titled Faraway Eyes) — drama

Here Are the Young Men — drama

Here Today — comedy/drama

A Hero — drama

Hero Dog: The Journey Home — drama

Hero Mode — comedy

Herself — drama

The High Note — comedy/drama

His House — horror

His Only Son — drama

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard — action

HIT: The First Case (2022) — action

HIT: The 2nd Case — action

Hive — drama

Hocus Pocus 2 — fantasy/comedy

Hold Your Fire — documentary

A Holiday Chance — comedy/drama

Holler — drama

Holly Slept Over — comedy

Home Coming (2022) — action

Honest Thief — action

Hong Kong Family — drama

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. — comedy

Hooking Up (2020) — comedy

Hope Gap — drama

Horse Girl — sci-fi/drama

The Host (2020) — horror

Hosts — horror

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania — animation

Hot Seat (2022) — drama

The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2 — comedy/horror

House of Gucci — drama

House of Hummingbird — drama

The House of No Man (also titled Ms. Nu’s House) — drama

House Party (2023) — comedy

How It Ends (2021) — comedy

How to Blow Up a Pipeline — drama

How to Build a Girl — comedy

How to Fix a Primary — documentary

How to Please a Woman — comedy/drama

Huda’s Salon — drama

Huesera: The Bone Woman — horror

Human Capital (2020) — drama

Human Nature (2020) — documentary

The Humans (2021) — drama

A Hundred Billion Key — action

Hunt (2022) — action

The Hunt — horror

Hunter Hunter — horror

Hypnotic (2023) — sci-fi/action

Hypochondriac (2022) — horror

Hysterical (2021) — documentary

I Am Human — documentary

I Am Somebody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story — drama

I Am Vengeance: Retaliation — action

IB 71 — action

I Carry You With Me — drama

If I Can’t Have You: The Jodi Arias Story — documentary

I Hate New York — documentary

I Hate the Man in My Basement — drama

I Love My Dad — comedy

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me — documentary

iMordecai — comedy/drama

Impractical Jokers: The Movie — comedy

I’m Thinking of Ending Things — drama

I’m Totally Fine — sci-fi/comedy

I’m Your Man (2021) — sci-fi/comedy/drama

I’m Your Woman — drama

Incitement — drama

India Sweets and Spices — comedy/drama

Infamous (2020) — drama

The Infiltrators — docudrama

Infinite Storm — drama

Infinity Pool (2023) — horror

The Informer (2020) — drama

InHospitable — documentary

Initials SG — drama

Inna De Yard: The Soul of Jamaica — documentary

The Innocents (2021) — horror

In Our Mothers’ Gardens — documentary

Inside (2023) — drama

The Inspection — drama

Instaband — documentary

The Integrity of Joseph Chambers — drama

In the Earth — horror

In the Footsteps of Elephant — documentary

In the Heights — musical

Intrusion (2021) — drama

Inu-Oh — animation

The Invaders (2022) — documentary

In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis — documentary

The Invisible Man (2020) — horror

The Invitation (2022) — horror

Iron Mask (formerly titled The Mystery of the Dragon Seal) — fantasy/action

Irresistible (2020) — comedy

Is That Black Enough for You?!? — documentary

I Still Believe — drama

Italian Studies — drama

It Takes a Lunatic — documentary

It Takes Three (2021) — comedy

I Used to Go Here — comedy/drama

I’ve Got Issues — comedy

I Want My MTV — documentary

I Will Make You Mine — drama

Jackass Forever — comedy

Jakob’s Wife — horror

Jane (2022) — drama

The Janes — documentary

Janhit Mein Jaari — comedy/drama

January (2022) — drama

Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey — comedy/drama

Jayeshbhai Jordaar — comedy

Jay Myself — documentary

Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story — documentary

Jesus Revolution — drama

Jethica — comedy/drama

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey — musical

Jiu Jitsu — sci-fi/action

Jockey (2021) — drama

Joe Bell (formerly titled Good Joe Bell) — drama

John and the Hole — drama

John Henry — action

John Lewis: Good Trouble — documentary

John Wick: Chapter 4 — action

JonBenét Ramsey: What Really Happened? — documentary

A Journal for Jordan — drama

Joyride (2022) — comedy/drama

Judas and the Black Messiah (formerly titled Jesus Was My Homeboy) — drama

Judy & Punch — drama

Judy Blume Forever — documentary

Jugjugg Jeeyo — comedy/drama

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 — animation

Jungle Cruise — fantasy/action

Jungleland (2020) — drama

Jurassic World Dominion — sci-fi/action

Kabzaa (2023) — action

Kajillionaire — comedy/drama

Kalaga Thalaivan — action

Karen (2021) — drama

Kat and the Band — comedy

Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On! — documentary

Kehvatlal Parivar — comedy/drama

The Kerala Story — drama

Kicking Blood — horror

Kid Candidate — documentary

Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections — documentary

Killer Among Us — horror

Killer Therapy — horror

Killian & the Comeback Kids — drama

The Killing of Two Lovers — drama

The Kill Team (2019) — drama

Kill the Monsters — drama

The Kindness of Strangers — drama

Kindred (2020) — drama

The King of Staten Island — comedy/drama

King Otto — documentary

King Richard — drama

The King’s Daughter (formerly titled The Moon and the Sun) — fantasy/drama

The King’s Man — action

Knights of the Zodiac (2023) — fantasy/action

Knock at the Cabin — horror

Kompromat — drama

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time — documentary

Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan — action

Kuttey — action

Laal Singh Chaddha — drama

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022) — drama

La Guerra Civil — documentary

Lair — horror

La Llorona — horror

Lamb (2021) — horror

Land (2021) — drama

Lansky (2021) — drama

The Last Duel (2021) — drama

The Last Full Measure — drama

The Last Glaciers — documentary

Last Night in Soho — horror

Last Sentinel — sci-fi/drama

The Last Vermeer — drama

Laththi (also titled Laththi Charge) — action

The Lawyer — drama

Leftover Women — documentary

The Legend of Maula Jatt — action

Legions (2022) — horror

Les Misérables (2019) — drama

Let Him Go — drama

Licorice Pizza — comedy/drama

The Lie (2020) — drama

Life in a Day 2020 — documentary

Lighting Up the Stars — comedy/drama

Lightyear — animation

Like a Boss — comedy

Limbo (2021) — comedy/drama

Limerence — comedy

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice — documentary

Lingua Franca — drama

Little Fish (2021) — sci-fi/drama

The Little Mermaid (2023) — fantasy

Little Richard: I Am Everything — documentary

The Little Things (2021) — drama

Living (2022) — drama

The Locksmith (2023) — drama

The Lodge — horror

The Longest Wave — documentary

Long Live Rock…Celebrate the Chaos — documentary

Long Weekend (2021) — sci-fi/drama

Lorelei (2021) — drama

Lost Bayou — drama

The Lost City (2022) — comedy

The Lost Daughter (2021) — drama

Lost Girls — drama

Lost Love (2023) — drama

Lost Transmissions — drama

The Lost Weekend: A Love Story — documentary

Los Últimos Frikis — documentary

A Lot of Nothing — comedy/drama

Love Again (2023) — comedy/drama

Love and Monsters — sci-fi/horror/action

The Lovebirds — comedy

Love Is Love Is Love — drama

Lovely Jackson — documentary

Love Sarah — comedy/drama

A Love Song — drama

Love Suddenly (2022) — comedy/drama

Love Type D — comedy

Love Wedding Repeat — comedy

Low Tide — drama

Luca (2021) — animation

Lucky Grandma — action

Lucy and Desi — documentary

Lux Æterna — comedy/drama

Luz: The Flower of Evil — horror

LX 2048 — sci-fi/drama

Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over — documentary

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile — comedy

M3GAN — horror/comedy

Ma Belle, My Beauty — drama

The Machine (2023) — action/comedy

Mack & Rita — comedy

Madres (2021) — horror

Mafia Mamma — comedy/drama

Magic Mike’s Last Dance — comedy/drama

Mai Khoi & the Dissidents — documentary

The Main Event (2020) — action

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound— documentary

Malignant (2021) — horror

Mallory (2021) — documentary

Malum (2023) — horror

Mama Weed — comedy/drama

Mami Wata (2023) — drama

A Man Called Otto — comedy/drama

Mandibles — comedy

Mank — drama

The Manor (2021) — horror

The Man Who Sold His Skin — drama

The Many Saints of Newark — drama

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — drama

Marathon (2021) — comedy

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On — live-action/animation

Mark, Mary & Some Other People — comedy

The Marksman (2021) — action

Marlowe (2023) — drama

Marry Me (2022) — comedy

Mars One — drama

Martha: A Picture Story — documentary

Martin Margiela: In His Own Words — documentary

Masquerade (2021) — horror

Mass (2021) — drama

Master (2022) — horror

The Matrix Resurrections — sci-fi/action

Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back — documentary

The Mauritanian — drama

Maybe I Do — comedy/drama

Mayday (2021) — action

Measure of Revenge — drama

Meat Me Halfway — documentary

Medieval (2022) — action

Medusa (2022) — drama

Memoria (2021) — sci-fi/drama

Memory (2022) — action

Men (2022) — horror

The Menu (2022) — horror

Michael (2023) — action

Mid-Century (2022) — horror

Midnight in the Switchgrass — drama

Mighty Ira — documentary

Mighty Oak — drama

Mili (2022) — drama

Military Wives — comedy/drama

The Mimic (2021) — comedy

Minari — drama

The Mindfulness Movement — documentary

Minions: The Rise of Gru — animation

Misbehaviour — drama

Miss Americana — documentary

Missing (2023) — drama

Miss Juneteenth — drama

The Mitchells vs. the Machines — animation

Mixtape Trilogy: Stories of the Power of Music — documentary

MLK/FBI — documentary

Moffie — drama

The Mole Agent — documentary

Monday (2021) — drama

Money Back Guarantee (2023) — action/comedy

Monster Family 2 — animation

Monster Hunter — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Monstrous (2022) — horror

Montana Story — drama

Moonage Daydream — documentary

Moonfall (2022) — sci-fi/action

Moon Man (2022) — sci-fi/comedy/drama

Morbius — horror/action

Mortal — sci-fi/action

Mortal Kombat (2021) — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Most Dangerous Game — sci-fi/action

Most Wanted (formerly titled Target Number One) — drama

Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You. — docudrama

Mothering Sunday — drama

A Mouthful of Air — drama

Move Me (2022) — documentary

Moving On (2023) — comedy/drama

Mr. Malcolm’s List — comedy/drama

Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway — drama

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris — comedy/drama

Mr. Soul! — documentary

Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado — documentary

Mulan (2020) — fantasy/action

Mummies (2023) — animation

Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story — documentary

Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story — documentary

Music Pictures: New Orleans — documentary

My Boyfriend’s Meds — comedy

My Country, My Parents (also titled My Country, My Family) — drama

My Dad’s Christmas Date — comedy/drama

My Darling Vivian — documentary

My Father Muhammad Ali — documentary

My Happy Ending — comedy/drama

My Love (2021) — comedy/drama

My Octopus Teacher — documentary

My Old School — documentary

My Salinger Year (also titled My New York Year) — drama

My Spy — comedy

Mystify: Michael Hutchence — documentary

Naked Singularity — drama

The Nan Movie — comedy

Nanny — horror

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind — documentary

National Champions — drama

Navalny — documentary

Needle in a Timestack — sci-fi/drama

Nefarious (2023) — drama

The Nest (2020) — drama

Never Forget Tibet — documentary

Never Gonna Snow Again — drama

Never Rarely Sometimes Always — drama

Never Stop (2021) — drama

Never Too Late (2020) — comedy

New Gods: Yang Jian — animation

New Order (2021) — drama

News of the World — drama

Next Exit — comedy/drama

A Nice Girl Like You — comedy

The Night (2021) — horror

The Night House — horror

Nightmare Alley (2021) — drama

Night of the Kings — drama

The Night Owl (2022) — drama

Nightride (2022) — drama

Nina Wu — drama

Nine Days — drama

Nitram — drama

Noah Land — drama

Nobody (2021) — sci-fi/action

Nocturne (2020) — horror

No Exit (2022) — drama

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin — documentary

Nomadland — drama

No Man’s Land (2021) — drama

Nope —sci-fi/horror

The Northman —fantasy/action

No Small Matter — documentary

No Time to Die (2021) — action

Notturno — documentary

The Novice (2021) — drama

The Nowhere Inn — comedy/drama

Objects — documentary

Of an Age — drama

The Offering (2022) — horror

Official Competition — comedy/drama

Old — horror

The Old Guard — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Old Henry (2021) — drama

Olympia — documentary

Olympic Dreams — comedy/drama

On Broadway (2021) — documentary

Once Upon a River — drama

Once Upon a Time in Uganda — documentary

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band — documentary

One Day as a Lion — action

One Hour Outcall — drama

One Man and His Shoes — documentary

One Night in Bangkok — drama

One Night in Miami… — drama

One Piece Film Red — animation

One True Loves (2023) — comedy/drama

One Week Friends (2022) — drama

Only — sci-fi/drama

The Only One (2021) — drama

On the Come Up — drama

On the Record — documentary

On the Rocks (2020) — drama

On the Trail: Inside the 2020 Primaries — documentary

Onward — animation

Open — drama

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre — action

Ordinary Love — drama

Origin of the Species (2021) — documentary

Orphan: First Kill — horror

Otherhood — comedy

The Other Lamb — drama

Other Music — documentary

Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles — documentary

Our Friend (formerly titled The Friend) — drama

Our Ladies — comedy/drama

Our Time Machine — documentary

The Outfit (2022) — drama

Out of Blue — drama

The Outpost — drama

Out Stealing Horses — drama

Over My Dead Body (2023) — comedy

Paap Punyo —drama

Paint (2023) —comedy

The Painter and the Thief — documentary

The Pale Blue Eye — drama

Palm Springs —sci-fi/comedy

Paper Spiders — drama

The Paper Tigers — action

Paradise Highway — drama

Parallel (2020) — sci-fi/drama

Parallel Mothers — drama

Paranormal Prison — horror

Paris, 13th District — drama

Parkland Rising — documentary

Passing (2021) — drama

A Patient Man — drama

PAW Patrol: The Movie — animation

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank — animation

Pearl (2022) — horror

A Perfect Enemy — drama

The Persian Version — drama

The Personal History of David Copperfield — comedy/drama

Personality Crisis: One Night Only — documentary

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway — live-action/animation

Petite Maman — drama

Petit Mal (2023) — drama

The Phantom of the Open — comedy/drama

Phobias (2021) — horror

Phone Bhoot — comedy

The Photograph — drama

Pichaikkaran 2 — sci-fi/action

Pig (2021) — drama

Piggy (2022) — horror

Ping Pong: The Triumph — drama

Pinocchio (2022) — live-action/animation

The Place of No Words — drama

Plane — action

The Planters — comedy

Playing God (2021) — comedy

Pleasure (2021) — drama

Plucked — documentary

Plus One (2019) — comedy

The Pod Generation — comedy/drama

The Point Men (2023) (also titled Bargaining) — action

Polite Society — action/comedy

The Pollinators — documentary

The Pope’s Exorcist — horror

Pornstar Pandemic: The Guys — documentary

Port Authority (2019) — drama

Possessor Uncut — sci-fi/horror

The Power of the Dog — drama

Premature (2020) — drama

Prem Geet 3 — action

Pretty Problems — comedy/drama

Prey (2022) — sci-fi/horror

The Prey (2020) — action

Prey for the Devil (also titled The Devil’s Light) — horror

The Price of Desire — drama

The Price We Pay (2023) — horror

The Princess (2022) — documentary

Prisoners of the Ghostland — sci-fi/action

Profile (2021) — drama

Project Power — sci-fi/action

Project Wolf Hunting — sci-fi/horror/action

Promising Young Woman — comedy/drama

The Protégé (2021) — action

Proxima — sci-fi/drama

P.S. Burn This Letter Please — documentary

Public Enemy Number One — documentary

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish — animation

PVT CHAT — drama

Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad — action

Queenpins — comedy

¡Que Viva México! (2023) — comedy

The Quiet Girl — drama

The Quiet One (2019) — documentary

A Quiet Place Part II — sci-fi/horror

The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie — animation

Quo Vadis, Aida? — drama

The Racer — drama

Radioactive — drama

Raging Fire — action

Railway Children (formerly titled The Railway Children Return) — drama

A Rainy Day in New York — comedy

Raising Buchanan — comedy

Ram Setu — action

Rare Beasts — comedy

Ravanasura — action

Ravening (formerly titled Aamis) — drama

Raya and the Last Dragon — animation

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks — documentary

Rebuilding Paradise — documentary

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project — documentary

Redeeming Love — drama

Red Penguins — documentary

Red Rocket — comedy/drama

Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs — animation

Refuge (2023) — documentary

A Regular Woman — drama

Relic — horror

Remember (2022) — action

Reminiscence (2021) — sci-fi/drama

Renfield (2023) — horror/comedy

The Rental (2020) — horror

Rent-A-Pal — horror

The Rescue (2021) — documentary

The Rescue List — documentary

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City — horror

Resistance (2020) — drama

Respect (2021) — drama

Resurrection (2022) — horror

Retaliation (formerly titled Romans) — drama

The Retreat (2021) — horror

Return to Seoul — drama

Rewind — documentary

The Rhythm Section — action

The Ride (2020) — drama

Ride Like a Girl — drama

Ride On — comedy/drama

Riders of Justice — drama

Ride the Eagle — comedy/drama

The Right One — comedy

Riotsville, USA — documentary

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It — documentary

River City Drumbeat — documentary

RK/RKAY — comedy

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain — documentary

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical — musical

Roald Dahl’s The Witches — horror/fantasy

Robert the Bruce — drama

Robots (2023) — sci-fi/comedy

Ron’s Gone Wrong — animation

The Rookies (2019) — action

Room 203 — horror

Rounding — drama

The Roundup (2022) — action

Rubikon (2022) — sci-fi/drama

Run (2020) — drama

Runner — documentary

Running the Bases — drama

Run With the Hunted — drama

Rushed — drama

Ruth: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words — documentary

Rye Lane — comedy

Safer at Home — drama

Saint Frances — comedy/drama

Saint Maud — horror

Saint Omer — drama

Saloum — horror

Sam & Kate — comedy/drama

Samrat Prithviraj (formerly titled Prithviraj) — action

Santa Camp — documentary

Save Yourselves! — sci-fi/horror/comedy

Saving Paradise — drama

Say Hey, Willie Mays! — documentary

Say I Do to Me — comedy

The Scheme (2020) — documentary

Scheme Birds — documentary

School’s Out Forever — horror

Scoob! — animation

Scrapper (2023) — comedy/drama

Scream (2022) — horror

Scream VI — horror

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street — documentary

Screened Out — documentary

Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth (formerly titled Seahorse) — documentary

Seberg — drama

The Secret: Dare to Dream — drama

A Secret Love — documentary

The Secrets We Keep — drama

See for Me — horror

See How They Run (2022) — comedy/drama

See Know Evil — documentary

See You Yesterday — sci-fi/drama

Selah and the Spades — drama

Selfiee — comedy

Sell/Buy/Date — documentary

Separation (2021) — horror

Sergio (2020) — drama

Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days — documentary

Settlers (2021) — sci-fi/drama

The Seventh Day (2021) — horror

Shabaash Mithu — drama

Shadows of Freedom — documentary

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Shattered (2022) — drama

Shazam! Fury of the Gods — sci-fi/fantasy/action

She Dies Tomorrow — drama

Shehzada (2023) — action

She Is Love — drama

She Said — drama

She’s in Portland — drama

She Will — horror

Shine Your Eyes — drama

Shirley — drama

Shithouse — comedy/drama

Shonibar Bikel (Saturday Afternoon) — drama

Shortcut — horror

The Short History of the Long Road — drama

A Shot Through the Wall — drama

Showbiz Kids — documentary

Showing Up (2023) — comedy/drama

The Show’s the Thing: The Legendary Promoters of Rock — documentary

Siberia (2021) — drama

Sidney — documentary

Significant Other (2022) — sci-fi/horror

Silent Night (2021) (starring Keira Knightley) — comedy/drama

The Silent Party — drama

The Silent Twins — drama

Silk Road (2021) — drama

A Simple Wedding — comedy

Sing 2 — animation

The Sinners (2021) (also titled The Virgin Sinners; formerly titled The Color Rose) — horror

Sissy — horror

Sisu (2023) — action

Six Minutes to Midnight — drama

Skate Dreams — documentary

Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story — documentary

Skin Deep: The Battle Over Morgellons — documentary

Skin Walker — horror

Skyman — sci-fi/drama

Slay the Dragon — documentary

Small Engine Repair (2021) — comedy/drama

Smile (2022) — horror

Smiley Face Killers — horror

Smoking Causes Coughing — sci-fi/comedy

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Sniper: The White Raven — action

Sno Babies — drama

A Snowy Day in Oakland — comedy/drama

Soft & Quiet — drama

Somebody Up There Likes Me (2020) — documentary

Some Kind of Heaven — documentary

Some Like It Rare — horror/comedy

Sometimes Always Never — comedy/drama

Somewhere in Queens — comedy/drama

The Son (2022) — drama

The Sonata — horror

Songbird — sci-fi/drama

Sonic the Hedgehog — live-action/animation

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — live-action/animation

Son of Monarchs — drama

Sorry We Missed You — drama

Soul — animation

Soulmates (2021) — comedy

The Sound of Identity — documentary

Sound of Metal — drama

Sound of Silence (2023) — horror

The Sound of Violet (formerly titled Hooked) — drama

Southern Gospel — drama

The Souvenir Part II — drama

Space Jam: A New Legacy — live-action/amination

Spaceship Earth — documentary

The Sparks Brothers — documentary

The Sparring Partner — drama

Spell (2020) — horror

Spelling the Dream (formerly titled Breaking the Bee) — documentary

Spencer — drama

Spider-Man: No Way Home — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Spinning Gold — drama

Spiral (2021) — horror

Spirited (2022) — musical/comedy

Spirit Untamed — animation

Spoiler Alert (2022) — drama

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run — live-action/animation

Spontaneous — sci-fi/horror/comedy

Sputnik — sci-fi/horror

Standing Up, Falling Down — comedy/drama

Stardust (2020) — drama

The Starling Girl — drama

Stars at Noon — drama

Starting at Zero — documentary

The State of Texas vs. Melissa — documentary

Stealing School — comedy/drama

Stevenson Lost & Found — documentary

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie — documentary

Still Here (2020) — drama

Stillwater (2021) — drama

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry — drama

The Story of Soaps — documentary

The Stranger (Quibi original) — drama

Strange World (2022) — animation

Stray (2021) — documentary

Stray Dolls — drama

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street — documentary

Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash — drama

Studio 666 (2022) — horror/comedy

The Stylist — horror

Subho Bijoya — drama

Subjects of Desire — documentary

Sublime — documentary

Sugar Daddy (2021) — drama

The Suicide Squad — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Summering — drama

Summerland — drama

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) — documentary

Summoning Sylvia — horror/comedy

Sundown (2022) — drama

The Sunlit Night — comedy/drama

The Super Mario Bros. Movie — animation

Supernova (2021) — drama

Super Punjabi — comedy

The Surrogate — drama

Survive — drama

Swallow — drama

Swallowed (2023) — horror

Swan Song (2021) (starring Mahershala Ali) — sci-fi/drama

Swan Song (2021) (starring Udo Kier) — comedy/drama

Sweetheart Deal — documentary

Sweet Thing (2020) — drama

Sweetwater (2023) — drama

The Swerve — drama

The Swing of Things — comedy

Sylvie’s Love — drama

Synchronic — sci-fi/horror

Table for Six (2022) — comedy/drama

Take Back — action

Take Me to the River: New Orleans — documentary

Tango Shalom — comedy/drama

Tankhouse — comedy

Tape (2020) — drama

Tar — horror

TÁR — drama

A Taste of Hunger — drama

A Taste of Sky — documentary

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman — horror

The Tender Bar — drama

Ten Minutes to Midnight — horror

Terrorizers — drama

Tesla — drama

Tetris (2023) — drama

Thank God (2022) — comedy/drama/fantasy

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond — animation

Then Came You (2020) — comedy

There There — comedy/drama

They Call Me Dr. Miami — documentary

They Wait in the Dark — horror

The Thing About Harry — comedy

Think Like a Dog — comedy/drama

Thirteen Lives — drama

This Is Personal — documentary

This Is Stand-Up — documentary

This Is the Year — comedy

Thor: Love and Thunder — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Those Who Wish Me Dead — drama

A Thousand and One — drama

A Thousand Cuts (2020) — documentary

A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy — documentary

Three Headed Beast — drama

Three Minutes—A Lengthening — documentary

Three Thousand Years of Longing — fantasy

Through the Night (2020) — documentary

Ticket to Paradise (2022) — comedy

Tick, Tick…Boom! — musical

Tijuana Jackson: Purpose Over Prison — comedy

Till — drama

Time (2020) — documentary

Time Is Up (2021) — drama

The Times of Bill Cunningham — documentary

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made — comedy

The Tinder Swindler — documentary

Titane — horror

The Tobacconist — drama

Together (2021) — comedy/drama

Together Together — comedy/drama

To Kid or Not to Kid — documentary

To Kill the Beast — drama

Tom and Jerry — live-action/animation

Tommaso — drama

Tom of Your Life — sci-fi/comedy

Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers — documentary

Too Late (2021) — horror/comedy

Top Gun: Maverick — action

The Torch (2022) — documentary

Totally Under Control — documentary

To the Moon (2022) — drama

Trafficked: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare — drama

The Tragedy of Macbeth — drama

Traveling Light (2022) — drama

The Trial of the Chicago 7 — drama

Triangle of Sadness — comedy/drama

The Trip to Greece — comedy

Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts — documentary

Trolls World Tour — animation

Troop Zero — comedy

The True Adventures of Wolfboy — drama

The Truffle Hunters — documentary

Trust (2021) — drama

The Truth — drama

Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar — comedy

The Turning (2020) — horror

Turning Red — animation

The Tutor (2023) — drama

‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas — documentary

Twas the Night (2021) — comedy

The Twentieth Century — comedy

Two of Us (2020) — drama

Tyson (2019) — documentary

Tyson’s Run — drama

Ultrasound — sci-fi/drama

Umma (2022) — horror

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent — action/comedy

Unbelievable (premiere episode) — drama

Uncaged (also titled Prey) – horror

Uncharted (2022) — action

Unconditional (2023) — documentary

Uncorked — drama

Under the Volcano (2021) — documentary

Underwater — sci-fi/horror

Undine (2020) — drama

Unfavorable Odds — comedy

Unhinged (2020) — action

The Unholy (2021) — horror

The United States vs. Billie Holiday — drama

Un Rescate de Huevitos — animation

The Unthinkable — drama

Until We Meet Again (2022) — drama

Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music — documentary

Uprooting Addiction — documentary

Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own — documentary

Utama — drama

Uunchai — drama

Vaalvi — comedy/drama

Vaathi (also titled Sir) — drama

Vadh — drama

Val — documentary

Valley Girl (2020) — musical

The Vanished (2020) (formerly titled Hour of Lead)— drama

Vanquish (2021) — action

The Vast of Night — sci-fi/drama

Veetla Vishesham — comedy/drama

Vengeance (2022) — comedy/drama

Vengeance Is Mine (2021) — action

Venom: Let There Be Carnage — sci-fi/fantasy/action

The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee — comedy

The Vigil (2021) — horror

Vijayanand — drama

Vikram (2022) — action

The Village in the Woods — horror

Violent Night — action/comedy

Violet (2021) — drama

Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations — documentary

The Virtuoso (2021) — drama

Vivarium — sci-fi/drama

Voyagers — sci-fi/drama

Waiting for Bojangles — comedy/drama

Waiting for the Barbarians — drama

Wander Darkly — drama

The Wandering Earth II — sci-fi/action

The War With Grandpa — comedy

Watcher (2022) — horror

Watson — documentary

The Way Back (2020) — drama

We Are Freestyle Love Supreme — documentary

We Are Little Zombies — comedy/drama

We Are Many — documentary

We Are the Radical Monarchs — documentary

Weathering With You — animation

We Broke Up — comedy

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story — comedy

Welcome to Chechnya — documentary

We Need to Do Something — horror

Werewolves Within — horror/comedy

Wes Schlagenhauf Is Dying — comedy

West Side Story (2021) — musical

The Whale (2022) — drama

What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali — documentary

What We Do Next — drama

What We Found — drama

What Will Become of Us (2019) — documentary

The Wheel (2022) — drama

When I Consume You — horror

When the Streetlights Go On — drama

When You Finish Saving the World — comedy/drama

Where the Crawdads Sing — drama

Whisper of the Heart (2022) — drama

The Whistlers — drama

White Noise (2022) — comedy/drama

A White, White Day — drama

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody — drama

Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America — documentary

Widow of Silence — drama

Wig — documentary

Wildcat (2022) — documentary

Wildflower (2023) — comedy/drama

Wild Indian — drama

Wild Men (2021) — comedy/drama

Wild Mountain Thyme — drama

Willy’s Wonderland — horror

The Windermere Children — drama

Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!) (formerly titled Vas-y Coupe!) — documentary

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey — horror

The Witch 2: The Other One — sci-fi/horror/action

Witch Hunt (2021) — horror

Wojnarowicz — documentary

Wolf (2021) — drama

The Wolf and the Lion — drama

The Wolf House — animation

The Wolf of Snow Hollow — horror

The Woman King — action

Woman on the Roof — drama

A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem — documentary

Women (2021) — horror

Women Talking — drama

The Wonder (2022) — drama

Wonder Woman 1984 — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation — documentary

Words on Bathroom Walls — drama

Work It — comedy/drama

The World to Come — drama

The Worst Person in the World — comedy/drama

Worst to First: The True Story of Z100 New York — documentary

Wrath of Man — action

The Wretched — horror

A Writer’s Odyssey — fantasy/action

The Wrong Missy — comedy

Wyrm — comedy

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse — horror

X (2022) — horror

XY Chelsea — documentary

Yaara Vey — drama

Yakuza Princess — action

¿Y Cómo Es Él? — comedy

The Year Between — comedy/drama

Yellow Rose — drama

Yesterday Once More (2023) — drama

You Are Not My Mother — horror

You Cannot Kill David Arquette — documentary

You Don’t Nomi — documentary

You Go to My Head — drama

You Hurt My Feelings (2023) — comedy

You Should Have Left — horror

You Won’t Be Alone — horror

Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn — documentary

Zack Snyder’s Justice League — sci-fi/fantasy/action

Zappa — documentary

Zeros and Ones — drama

Zola — comedy/drama

Zombi Child — horror

Zwigato — drama

Review: ‘Pichaikkaran 2,’ starring Vijay Antony, Kavya Thapar and Dev Gill

May 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

Vijay Anand in “Pichaikkaran 2” (Photo courtesy of Vijay Anan Film Corporation)

“Pichaikkaran 2”

Directed by Vijay Antony

Tamil with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Chennai, India, the sci-fi action film “Pichaikkaran 2” (a stand-alone sequel to 2016’s “Pichaikkaran” features an all-South-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An evil and greedy businessman, who wants to get rid his rival brother, abducts a street beggar so that the brains of the beggar and the businessman’s brother can be switched through a secret surgery.

Culture Audience: “Pichaikkaran 2” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching a shallow “screwball” comedy that makes no sense.

Dev Gill in “Pichaikkaran 2” (Photo courtesy of Vijay Anan Film Corporation)

“Pichaikkaran 2” is a sorry excuse for a sequel. This long-winded sci-fi action flick has a terribly conceived plot about brain-swapping. This time-wasting junk ironically lacks any brain-power intelligence. The only real brain damage is to the brain cells of viewers who watch this idiotic film.

Written and directed by Vijay Antony, “Pichaikkaran 2” is a sequel to the 2016 film “Pichaikkaran,” which is superior to this sequel in every single way. (The word “pichaikkaran” means “beggar” in Tamil.) The main thing that these vastly different movies have in common is that Vijay Antony has the title starring role in both movies. “Pichaikkaran” was written and directed by Sasi. Antony makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Pichaikkaran 2,” which Antony co-wrote with K Palani and Paul Antony.

In “Pichaikkaran 2” (which takes place in Chennai, India), a wealthy businessman named Vijay Gurumoorthy (played by Antony) is the heir leader to his family’s business, after the family patriarch (Vijay’s father) has died. Vijay’s evil and greedy younger brother Aravind (played by Dev Gill) convinces a reluctant Vijay to keep their father’s death a secret for about a month. Aravind’s tells Vijay that they need this secrecy so that the company’s stocks don’t go down and so that they have time to prepare for the transition to new leadership.

In reality, Aravind want this month to prepare for a dastardly plan to get rid of Vijay and take over the business. Aravind has heard about a revolutionary surgery that can do human brain transplants. This surgery is an outlawed medical procedure, since the worldwide medical community has issues with the ethics of human brain transplants.

A rogue surgeon named Dr. Shiva (played by Hareesh Peradi) is an advocate of this surgery and has given media interviews saying that this surgery should be legal because it could prolong people’s lives. Aravind tells M. Krishna Iyer (played by Y. G. Mahendran), the loyal secretary of this deceased business mogul, to find Dr. Shiva, who is brought to a secret meeting with Aravind and Krishna. Dr. Shiva is eager to perform this surgery, for the right price.

After Aravind is convinced that this surgery would really work, he hires Dr. Shiva and tells him to wait and see who will be the two people who will have their brains swapped. Aravind then has Vijay kidnapped. Aravind viciously beats and kicks Vijay into unconsciousness. And it just so happens there’s an impoverished beggar named Sathya (also played by Antony) is a look-alike to Vijay. Sathya, who grew up as a poor orphan, is also kidnapped and made unconscious through violent ways.

Two look-alike people and a brain-swapping plot? You know what this means, of course. Vijay and Sathya end up in a secret operating room, where their brains are swapped. When they both wake up, the body of Vijay has the mind of Sathya, while the body of Sathya has the mind of Vijay. Sathya and Vija still have long-term memories, so they can vividly remember their past.

Avarind’s plan is to kill the body of Sathya (which has Vijay’s mind) and keep the body of Vijay (which has Sathya’s mind), to use as a decoy, so that people will think Vijay is still alive. Avarind thinks that this “fake Vijay” (who has Sathya’s mind) will be such an incompetent leader, the “fake Vijay” will be ousted from the company, giving Avarind a clear path to take over the family business.

After this secret brain-transplant surgery take place, Vijay’s loyal and loving girlfriend Hema (played by Kavya Thapar), who also works for the company, begins to grow suspicious about the way Vijay has been acting. Will she discover the secret? Will Avarind get away with his moronic scheme? This bloated 148-minute film stretches out the very thin plot with a lot of phony-looking fight scenes and cringeworthy musical numbers.

Everything about “Pichaikkaran 2” reeks of mindless filmmaking with a big budget. How stupid is the dialogue in “Pichaikkaran 2”? Aravind repeats the redundant phrase that Vijay is worth “millions and billions.” The acting in this movie is mostly horrendous. The film editing (by Antony) is choppy and amateurish. Antony also wrote the bombastic musical score for “Pichaikkaran 2,” which blasts the music in obnoxious volume levels.

Although “Pichaikkaran 2” tries to make Vijay look like he’s a desirable and admirable person, he’s actually quite terrible. There’s a scene early in the movie where Hema questions Vijay’s decision to keep his father’s death a secret for a month. In response, Vijay hits Hema hard in the face. It’s all just an exploitative set-up to make the mind of altruistic and compassionate Sathya the better choice for the body of Vijay.

Along the way, “Pichaikkaran 2” has a lot of preaching about Anti-Bikili, a social movement that’s against greed, corruption and arrogance about money. There’s also a treacly subplot about Sathya looking for his long-lost sister Rani, who was separated from him in their childhood, when they were sent to different foster homes. “Pichaikkaran 2” is just a horribly made vanity project from Antony. The only real “begging” for “Pichaikkaran 2” is when disastified viewers see how bad this trash-dump movie is and beg for it to be over.

Vijay Antony Film Corporation released “Pichaikkaran 2” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 19, 2023.

Review: ‘Over My Dead Body’ (2023), starring Teresa Mo, Wong You Nam, Ronald Cheng, Jennifer Yu, Lau Kong, Bonnie Wong and Hanna Chan

May 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

Alan Yeung Wai Lun, Teresa Mo, Wong You Nam and Jennifer Yu in “Over My Dead Body” (Photo courtesy of Illume Films and Imagi Crystal Studio)

“Over My Dead Body” (2023)

Directed by Ho Cheuk Tin

Cantonese with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Hong Kong, the comedy film “Over My Dead Body” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Some residents and employees of a co-op apartment building try to hide the body of an unidentified naked man who was found in a hallway of the building.

Culture Audience: “Over My Dead Body” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching a shallow “screwball” comedy that makes no sense.

Bonnie Wong and Lau Kong in “Over My Dead Body” (Photo courtesy of Illume Films and Imagi Crystal Studio)

“Over My Dead Body” is a comedy that’s as creatively inert as a corpse. This repetitive and frequently incoherent movie, which is about people trying to hide a body, is plagued by annoying plot holes, scatterbrained characters and a foolish ending. And with a total running time of two hours, “Over My Dead Body” is entirely too long for the movie’s flimsy story.

Directed by Ho Cheuk Tin and Kong Ho-Yan, “Over My Dead Body” is about several residents and employees of a Hong Kong co-op apartment building trying to hide the body of an unidentified naked man in his 30s (played by Kenneth Cheung), who was found in a hallway of the building. There’s also a clumsy subplot about a young woman who doesn’t live in the building but is getting married. Don’t try to make any sense of what happens in this moronic film, which quickly grows tiresome with all the shrieking and yelling over what do to about this stranger’s body.

“Over My Dead Body” begins by showing the family members who end up discovering the body outside their apartment unit. The apartment building, located in Hong Kong’s Sha Tin district, is an upscale, 25-floor building called Seaside Heights, which has 100 apartment units. Seaside Heights is marketed as evoking an “exquisite French lifestyle,” according to an ad shown in the movie.

There’s really nothing French about this apartment building. It’s just an excuse for the movie to have a bizarre fantasy sequence of many of the apartment building residents dressed in 18th century-styled French costumes, as if they’re about to have tea with Marie Antoinette. The movie has even more weirdness—and not in a good way.

There are five family members living in the apartment unit where the body is found outside the unit. Before this shocking discovery, tensions were already running high in the family. The apartment unit is owned by divorcée Meghan So (played by Teresa Mo), who is the household’s primary source of income.

Meghan shows a lot of resentment over having to carry most of the financial burden for everyone in the household. Also living in the household is Meghan’s daughter Yana Chung (played by Jennifer Yu), a flight attendant whose husband Ming To (played by Wong You Nam) is currently unemployed. Yana and Ming have an adorable daughter named Yoyo (played by Lau Ying Yu), who’s about 5 years old.

Meghan has another child named Kingston Chung (played by Alan Yeung Wai Lun, also known as Yeung Wai Lun), Yana’s goofy younger brother who is also unemployed. However, Meghan shows much more tolerance for Kingston than she does for Yana. Kingston says he will be able to make money when he launches his “brand.” The movie later reveals that Kingston wants to start a company called the Anti-Facial Social Club, which sells facial stickers designed to prevent facial recognition done by technology.

One of the early scenes in the movie show Meghan clashing with Yana and Ming when the spouses talk about their desire to move out so they can have more space to raise Yoyo. Meghan warns the couple that it would be expensive for Yana and Ming to get their own place on the couple’s limited income. This leads to more complaining from Meghan about how she has to pay most of the living expenses in the household.

During this argument, someone happens to open the front door to the apartment unit. The arguing family members are shocked to see a naked man slumped on the hallway floor in front of the unit. No one in the family knows who he is and have never seen this stranger before.

When they determine that the man is dead, everyone except Meghan immediately wants to call for help. Kingston goes as far as dialing 999 (the emergency number in Hong Kong), but Meghan forces him to hang up before he can say what the problem is. Meghan yells at everyone that if the news got out that there was a naked dead man found in the building, then the building’s property.

The rest of the movie shows various people finding out about the body and trying to hide it too. An elderly couple named Boron Chan (played by Lau Kong) and Betty Chan (played by Bonnie Wong), who are retired schoolteachers, are very superstitious. They want to hide the body because they think if they don’t hide the body, then people will think the building is haunted. Boron is also the treasurer for this co-op building.

A bachelorette named Mary Tse (played by Grace Wu) is described as a “young single mother” who is very protective of her baby, which she covers up in a carriage when she goes out in public. But surprise! It’s revealed early on in the movie that Mary’s “baby” is really a small dog. Dogs are not allowed in the building.

Meghan threatens to tell the building management that Mary has a dog, which is why Mary goes along with the plan to hide the body. Mary has a maid named Nancy (played by Valenzuela Lucy Navarette), who gets ensnared in the body-hiding conspiracy because Mary threatens to have Nancy deported back to Thailand if she doesn’t cooperate. “I’m from the Philippines,” Nancy tells Mary. This is what’s supposed to pass as “comedy” in “Over My Dead Body.”

Other people who get involved in hiding the body are a taxi driver named Bear Cheung (played by Ronny Cheng), who lives in the building and has a strained relationship with his son Mesai Cheung (played by Edan Lui), who is in his early 20s. Bear and Mesai have lived together, ever since Bear’s wife/Edan’s mother (played by Xenia Chong, shown in flashbacks) left them and had a bitter divorce. Mesai blames Bear for the breakup of the marriage.

Mesai is a video game/computer enthusiast. Somehow, he has found a way to hack into the buildings video surveillance system. It becomes a subplot in the movie when the building’s security chief S.G. Lee (played by Jiro Lee) finds out about the body too. S.G. Lee brags that he knows who all the building residents are, but he does not know who the mysterious nude man is and how he got into the building.

As already revealed in the trailer for “Over My Dead Body,” some of the apartment dwellers end up in a jail cell, where they meet a bride-to-be named Sue Yu (played by Hanna Chan), who gets mixed up in this awful mess. And where is Yoyo during all of these silly antics? She’s conveniently kept out of sight for most of the movie, which only shows Yoyo for some “cute kid” moments.

“Over My Dead Body” is a stagnant cesspool of irritating characters shrieking, hollering, and doing things that never look believable. None of the acting in this movie is any good. The movie’s direction and film editing are often unfocused, jumping from one character to the next in clumsy ways. The sloppy screenplay leaves no room for character development.

The movie saved the worst parts for last. In the movie’s last 15 minutes, when it’s revealed who the mystery stranger is, “Over My Dead Body” takes an abrupt turn into phony sentimentality. The movie, which was already failing to be amusing, tried to be an edgy and irreverent satire about status-conscious people for most of the story. In the end, “Over My Dead Body” just turns into a huge, mushy plothole that insults viewers’ intelligence.

Illume Films and Imagi Crystal Studio released “Over My Dead Body” in select U.S. cinemas on May 19, 2023. The movie was released in Hong Kong on March 24, 2023.

Review: ‘You Hurt My Feelings’ (2023), starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague and Jeannie Berlin

May 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

Tobias Menzies and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “You Hurt My Feelings” (Photo by Jeong Park/A24)

“You Hurt My Feelings” (2023)

Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the comedy film “You Hurt My Feelings” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An insecure book author gets deeply upset when she finds out that her psychotherapist husband has been pretendng to like her first novel, and this revelation leads her to question his honesty in the marriage.

Culture Audience: “You Hurt My Feelings” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, filmmaker Nicole Holofcener and satire-tinged comedies where people make a big deal out of problems that are very trivial in the real world.

Arian Moayed and Michaela Watkins in “You Hurt My Feelings” (Photo by Jeong Park/A24)

If you’re a fan of comedies that poke gentle fun at somewhat spoiled protagonists, then “You Hurt My Feelings” (written and directed by Nicole Holofcener) is the type of movie that perfectly fits this description. It’s a low-key and realistic comedy about people who live in the bubble of being privileged and neurotic New Yorkers. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an actress queen for this type of character. This movie isn’t for everyone, but the performances are entertaining. “You Hurt My Feelings” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

In “You Hurt My Feelings” (which takes place in New York City), Louis-Dreyfus portrays Beth Mitchell, an insecure book author who is constantly seeking validation from people around her. The person whose opinions and respect that Beth values the most is her husband Don Mitchell (played by Tobias Menzies), who is an easygoing psychotherapist. Don is very laid-back and tolerant, while Beth is uptight and judgmental. Even though Beth and Don have opposite personalities, they’ve had a very long and happy marriage.

At least that’s what Beth thinks, until she finds out something that shakes her to the core: Don has been pretending to like the book that Beth is currently working on: her first novel, which is also her second book. Don is one of the few people whom Beth has let read the manuscript for this book. She’s already feeling insecure because her first book (a memoir detailing the verbal abuse she got from her now-deceased father) was not the bestseller that Beth hoped it would be. The memoir wasn’t a total flop, but it had sales that were lukewarm.

Adding to Beth’s unease about her first novel is the less-than-enthusiastic response from her book agent. Not long before Beth found out that Don doesn’t like the manuscript, her agent Sylvia (played by LaTanya Richardson Jackson) told Beth during a lunch meeting that Sylvia doesn’t really like the manuscript either and thinks it’s not as interesting as Beth’s memoir. Sylvia commented to Beth in this meeting that there’s a lot of competition in the book publishing industry, which is always looking for “new voices.” Beth interprets this comment as Sylvia telling Beth that she’s old.

Why is Beth so insecure? It’s mentioned about midway through the movie that her father did a lot of emotional damage to her with his verbal abuse. He often called her “shit for brains” when Beth was a child. It’s a phrase that Beth says out loud to herself when she’s having moments of very low self-esteem.

Beth’s world is fairly insular, since most of the people interacts with are family members and work colleagues. She teaches a creative writing class to people who are mostly in their 20s and 30s. Beth encourages her students to take risks in their work. It’s advice that Beth doesn’t always follow for herself. The movie later shows how Beth can be hypocritical in other ways.

Beth has a younger sister named Sarah (played Michaela Watkins), an interior designer who’s battling her own insecurities about her career. Sarah is married to a frequently unemployed actor named Mark (played by Arian Moayed), who’s frustrated that he hasn’t been able to land starring roles and get work more often. Mark also happens to be Don’s best friend. (People from Don’s side of the family are never mentioned in the movie.) Beth and Sarah have a cranky and forgetful mother named Georgia (played by Jeannie Berlin), who might be showing signs of early onset dementia.

Don and Beth’s only child is a 23-year-old son named Eliot (played by Owen Teague), who works at a marijuana dispensary. Even though Beth occasionally smokes marijuana, she tells Eliot that she’s uncomfortable with his job, because she thinks there’s potential for danger on the job, and she thinks that college graduate Eliot (who is an aspiring playwright) isn’t living up to his potential. Beth thinks it’s also why Eliot’s girlfriend Alison (who’s never seen in the movie), an aspiring lawyer, seems to be drifting away from Eliot.

“You Hurt My Feelings” is made like a compilation of scenarios that show different personal angles of Beth and her loved ones. Beth finds out about Don’s true feelings for her manuscript when she and Sarah spontaneously eavesdrop on Don and Mark in a sporting goods store. The way that Beth reacts is as if Don betrayed her in the most hurtful manner possible. Beth begins to wonder if she even she even knows Don at all.

The movie goes back and forth between showing Beth’s interactions with people, as well as the therapy sessions that Don (a doctor with his own practice) has with some of his clients. These therapy sessions seem to be in the movie to show how Don approaches problem-solving in his clients’ personal relationships, compared to problem-solving in his own personal relationships.

The movie’s opening scene shows Don in a therapy session with a bickering married couple named Jonathan (played by David Cross) and Carolyn (played by Amber Tamblyn), who say hateful things to each other. (Cross and Tamblyn are spouses in real life.) Don passively sits and listens, even though Jonathan and Carolyn clearly want the type of therapist who will give them advice on what to do about their marriage. And as time goes on, viewers see that Don’s non-confrontational style can be a detriment in his own marriage.

An early scene in the “You Hate My Feelings” shows a wedding anniversary dinner that Beth and Don are having together at a restaurant. Don gives Beth a pair of gold leaf earrings as his anniversary gift. Beth gives Don a black V-necked shirt. They both smile and seem happy with these gifts during this romantic dinner. Later in the movie, it’s shown that these gifts are symbols of much deeper issues in Beth and Don’s relationship.

Louis-Dreyfus is the obvious standout in a movie where her Beth character is the main focus of the story. However, Watkins and Berlin also give terrific performances that skillfully balance realism with talented comedic timing. Menzies plays his part well as a somewhat bland but loyal husband, while the other cast members are part of the overall believability in their roles, which could easily have been played as caricatures.

Of course, many viewers won’t feel too sorry for Beth, because she has the type of comfortable life that many people would like to have: She’s healthy. She’s surrounded by people who love her. And she doesn’t have worry about basic needs, such as food or shelter.

But truth be told, a lot of privileged people who have charmed existences in real life can’t see beyond their own trivial problems because they really have no reason or motivation to do so. The closest that Beth wants to acknowledge any type of “real world” suffering is volunteering with Sarah at a charity that gives away free clothes to underprivileged people. If Beth’s worst problem is finding out that her husband doesn’t like her latest book, then that’s a pretty good life to have.

The movie admits it at one point when Don comments to Beth about how she’s reacting to him not liking her novel: “The whole world is falling apart, and this is what consumes you?” Beth replies, “I know the whole world is falling apart … but this is my small, narcissistic world, and I’m hurt.” For all the neuroses and self-absorption on display, a movie like “You Hurt My Feelings” serves as a reminder that people who seem to “have it all” can still find reasons to be miserable if they’re not completely happy with themselves.

A24 released “You Hurt My Feelings” in select U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.

Review: ‘About My Father’ (2023), starring Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche and Kim Cattrall

May 26, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro in “About My Father” (Photo by Dan Anderson/Lionsgate)

“About My Father” (2023)

Directed by Laura Terruso

Some language in Italian with no subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Illinois and in Virginia, the comedy film “About My Father” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An Italian American hotel manager in Chicago travels with artist girlfriend and his hair stylist father to Virginia, to meet the girlfriend’s Anglo Saxon wealthy family, and various uncomfortable situations occur because of different ethnic identities and socioeconomic classes. 

Culture Audience: “About My Father” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and predictably subpar comedies about tension-filled family gatherings.

Kim Cattrall, Leslie Bibb and David Rasche in “About My Father” (Photo by Dan Anderson/Lionsgate)

“About My Father” is just a mishmash of scenes that look like stale leftovers from a second-rate sitcom. Robert De Niro is doing another “grumpy old man” character that he keeps doing in awful comedies that fail to match the quality of “Meet the Parents.” De Niro has not made a really good comedy film since 2000’s “Meet the Parents,” in which he co-starred as a stern potential father-in-law to a neurotic male nurse (played by Ben Stiller), who meets this patriarch and other would-be in-laws for the first time during a family gathering.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that “About My Father” (directed by Laura Terruso) is a weak imitation of “Meet the Parents,” but with no real charm and with characters that mostly look very phony. “About My Father” has so many of same plot points and gags as “Meet the Parents,” the screenwriters of “About My Father” should be ashamed to call the screenplay “original.” Sebastian Maniscalco (who stars as the nervous bachelor in “About My Father”) and Austen Earl co-wrote the shallow and derivative “About My Father” screenplay. “About My Father” has such a lack of imagination, Maniscalco portrays a character who has the same name as he does.

Just like in “Meet the Parents,” the plot of “About My Father” is about an insecure American man in Chicago who meets the conservative, wealthier parents of his blonde, thin and pretty girlfriend at the parents’ family home. In “Meet the Parents,” the bachelor is Jewish and works as a nurse. In “About My Father,” the bachelor is of Italian heritage and works as an average-level hotel manager. Both movies use various ethnic and socioeconomic stereotypes as fuel for the comedy. The bachelor goes back and forth between being embarrassed and being proudly defensive about coming from a working-class family. He tries very hard to impress his more sophisticated potential in-laws.

The anxious bachelor hopes to get the parents’ approval because he wants to propose marriage to his girlfriend. Several wacky incidents then ensue involving the family playing competitive games with each other; pet animals that are liked or disliked by people at this gathering; and physical mishaps that cause tension and embarrassment. “Meet the Parents” and “About My Father” both have the girlfriend’s annoying siblings make the bachelor uncomfortable.

In “About My Father,” you can do a countdown to a lot of the predictable comedy clichés that have been in dozens of other movies. There’s even a “race against time” scene of someone trying catch up to someone else who’s about to leave on an airplane. The main plot difference between the two movies is that in “About My Father,” the bachelor brings his father along for this family visit. As expected in a formulaic comedy such as “About My Father,” this dad is an outspoken loose cannon who will clash with the pretentious and snobby family who’s hosting this gathering.

“About My Father” has somewhat irritating voiceover narration from the character of Sebastian throughout the movie. In the beginning of the film, Sebastian says that his family is originally from the Italian region of Sicily and has a very strong work ethic. His father Salvo (played by De Niro) immigrated from Sicily and comes from “a long line of Sicilian hairstylists.” Even though Salvo is well past retirement age, he still works in his own hair salon, where his customers (at least those shown in the movie) are middle-aged women who laugh at his unfunny jokes.

Sebastian (who has no siblings) is a first-generation Italian American. Sebastian’s mother is talked about but never shown in any flashbacks. Near the beginning of the movie, it’s mentioned that Sebastian’s mother has been dead for about a year. Sebastian and Salvo had a very close father-son relationship since Sebastian was a child. And now that Salvo is a widower, Sebastian feels obligated to stay close to his lonely father. Salvo and Sebastian live together.

Salvo and Sebastian’s relationship is a weird mix of co-dependent and macho. On the one hand, Salvo acts like Sebastian is being a disloyal son for having a life outside of being Salvo’s closest friend. (And to be clear: Salvo really has no other friends.) On the other hand, Salvo believes that certain things make men look like “sissies” and “wimps,” such as crying, or father and sons hugging each other.

Sebastian and Salvo have a ritual of spraying cologne on themselves before they go to sleep. It’s supposed to be one of the funny “gags” in the movie, but it just falls flat. Sebastian says in a voiceover: “At bedtime, our room smelled like an Uber [car] in Las Vegas.” Get used to this type of dreadful joke in “About My Father,” because the movie is full of these unfunny comments.

Sebastian is in a loving relationship with his cheerful and perky girlfriend Eleanor “Ellie” Collins (played by Leslie Bibb), who comes from a wealthy family in Virginia. Ellie’s ancestors were among the English settlers who came over to the future United States on the historic Mayflower voyage of 1620. Ellie is an artist whose specialty is in painting abstract art. An early scene in “About My Father” shows Ellie and Sebastian at a gallery exhibit for Ellie’s art. Sebastian and Ellie joke that one of her paintings looks like it could be vagina, except when the painting is turned horizontally. That’s what’s supposed to pass as “comedy” in this lackluster film.

In the voiceover narration, Sebastian describes Ellie as his “complete opposite” and his “dream woman.” Sebastian also mentions that Ellie introduced him to things such as sunlight coming into bedroom windows, daytime naps, avocado facials and smiling. There’s even a montage in the movie showing Sebastian grimacing, as he “trains” himself to smile more. Viewers will be grimacing for different reasons, as this movie strains to come up with funny lines of dialogue.

Ellie invites Sebastian to meet her family in Virginia, for a Fourth of July holiday weekend. (“About My Father” was actually filmed in Louisiana and Alabama.) Sebastian think this visit is a great idea, until Salvo starts whining about how the trip would mean that Salvo will be left home alone. Salvo also doesn’t think that Sebastian will fit in well with Ellie’s family. Sebastian tells Ellie he won’t go on the trip because he doesn’t want to leave Salvo at home alone, but then Ellie says that Salvo is invited too.

However, Sebastian doesn’t want Salvo to meet Ellie’s family, because Sebastian is sure that Salvo will be a complete embarrassment. Sebastian wants to propose to Ellie with the engagement ring that was owned by Salvo’s deceased mother. Salvo won’t give Sebastian this ring unless Salvo meets and approves of Ellie’s family.

After much hemming and hawing back and forth, Salvo ends up going on the trip with Sebastian and Ellie to the Collins family estate. They take a private plane to a private air strip, where they are greeted by Ellie’s spoiled, obnoxious and hard-partying older brother Williams Collins XIII (played by Anders Holm), whose nickname is Lucky. Sebastian, Salvo and Ellie then go in a helicopter piloted by Lucky to the vast summer home owned by the Collins family. Predictably, one of the helicopter passengers (Sebastian) gets airsick.

At the Collins family estate, Salvo and Sebastian meet Ellie’s parents and younger brother. Ellie’s father William Collins XII (played by David Rasche), whose nickname is Bill, is a luxury hotel mogul in charge of the family’s Collins Hotel Group empire. Bill is friendly in an elitist way. He loves to name drop and brag about high-priced items that he’s bought, while trying (and failing) to look humble.

Ellie’s mother Tigger Collins (played by Kim Cattrall) is a hard-driving and prickly U.S. senator who is used to getting her way. Ellie has warned Sebastian that Tigger will be much harder to please than Bill. Tigger is essentially the type of character that De Niro played in “Meet the Parents”: a domineering authority figure who intimidates the visitors.

Ellie’s younger brother Doug (played by Brett Dier) is the family’s spaced-out weirdo, who walks around dressed like a hippie cult member. Doug rambles about things that he thinks are “enlightening,” such as chakras, cleansing the energy in a room, and how a certain organic food affects his bowel movements. Doug’s family members treat him like a harmless eccentric.

Lucky works in the family’s hotel business. Doug doesn’t seem to work at all. Out of all three siblings, Ellie is clearly the favorite child of their parents, who treat Ellie like a pampered princess. When she’s around her parents, Ellie seems to revert back to acting like a teenager, which should be a “red flag” warning sign for someone who’s in a romance with her. However, immature Sebastian has got enough family issues of his own, and he gets very caught up in trying to impress Ellie’s parents.

The Collins family has peacocks that Ellie says are the family mascots. These peacocks walk around the property wherever they want, mostly outside. Salvo dislikes peacocks and says that they are bad luck. You know where this is going, of course. In “Meet the Parents,” the family pet that caused conflicts was a cat, which was beloved by the patriarch but disliked by the visiting bachelor.

“About My Father” has mostly unremarkable acting by cast members trying very hard to be funny when saying cringeworthy lines and depicting even more cringeworthy scenarios. Cattrall fares the best in some of the slapstick comedy, while De Niro is just going through the motions in rehashing the same persona he does in nearly all of his comedies since “Meet the Parents.”

Maniscalco became famous as a stand-up comedian, but he can’t carry this comedy film with the leading-man qualities required for this role. His smirking Sebastian character is both hollow and dull, reduced to nothing but idiotic quips and hammy facial expressions. The direction and writing for this movie look very outdated, like a 1990s movie that was made for a third-tier cable TV network.

“About My Father” might elicit a few chuckles from viewers. A scene that shows a brief flash of mildly amusing banter is when Sebastian and Salvo privately rant to each other about how pompous Tigger and Bill are about their wealth. But watching this disappointing movie dud is like being stuck in a room full of comedians using other people’s well-known and tired jokes, while the comedians try desperately to convince the audience that what they’re watching is fresh and original.

Lionsgate released “About My Father” in U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.

Review: ‘The Machine’ (2023), starring Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill, Jimmy Tatro, Iva Babić, Stephanie Kurtzuba and Jess Gabor

May 26, 2023

by Carla Hay

Mark Hamill and Bert Kreischer in “The Machine” (Photo by Aleksandar Letic/Screen Gems)

“The Machine” (2023)

Directed by Peter Atencio

Some language in Russian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Russia and in the United States, the action comedy film “The Machine” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Rude and crude American comedian Bert “The Machine” Kreischer and his father are kidnapped and brought to Russia by Russian criminals, who want Bert to find a valuable watch that they claim he stole 23 years earlier, when Bert was a partying college student visiting Russia. 

Culture Audience: “The Machine” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Kreischer, but even they might find this relentlessly idiotic and dull movie very hard to take.

Iva Babić and Bert Kreischer in “The Machine” (Photo by Aleksandar Letic/Screen Gems)

Crude, boring and obnoxiously stupid, “The Machine” repeatedly misfires and malfunctions as a showcase for stand-up comedian Bert “The Machine” Kreischer, who portrays a version of himself in his first starring movie role. Kreischer is also a producer of this grossly incompetent action comedy, released by Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Screen Gems. “The Machine” might have this corporate-owned movie studio as a distributor, but this junkpile film is worse than the most amateur, low-budget independent films that you could ever see.

Directed by Peter Atencio, “The Machine” has no creativity, no style and no charm. It stumbles around in repetitive scenarios and spews out deeply unfunny “jokes” that sound like ideas that would be rejected at low-rent comedy clubs. Kevin Biegel and Scotty Landes wrote the putrid screenplay for “The Machine,” which is proof that if you throw enough money around, untalented garbage can be made into a terrible movie. “The Machine” also has very unimaginative stereotypes of Russian mobsters. These lazy clichés quickly become tiresome.

“The Machine” doesn’t have much of a plot. The movie’s opening scene shows a Russian mobster boss named Igor (played by Nikola Djuricko) watching controversial stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer (whose persona is being a politically incorrect, drinking-and-drugging blowhard) doing a stand-up routine on TV. Igor becomes incensed and yells at the screen: “I want what you stole, Machine!” The enraged gangster than destroys the TV by shooting a gun at it.

A sloppily filmed montage near the beginning of the movie shows that Bert is having a meltdown in his career and in his personal life. Bert almost got his teenage daughter Sasha (played by Jess Gabor) arrested for something that was actually his fault. He’s such a terrible father, he livestreamed Sasha getting detained by police. As a result of the backlash, Bert took a hiatus from social media and cancelled his comedy tour.

Bert is smug and defiant during a family therapy session in the office of their therapist (played by Brian Caspe), who looks like he would rather be anywhere else but forced to be in a room with this lunkhead. Also in the therapy session are Bert’s long-suffering wife LeeAnn (played by Stephanie Kurtzuba), their obedient tween daughter Tatiana (played by Amelie Child Villiers) and a sulking Sasha. Bert congratulates himself for not calling anyone in the room the “c” word (as in “cunt”), even if he thinks they deserve to be called that word.

Back at home, Bert continues to heap praise on himself, by bragging to his family that he hasn’t done anything publicly embarrassing in three months. What does he want? A medal? Kreischer is married with two daughters in real life. This stinker of a movie is surely going to be an embarrassment for the entire family. Kreischer’s real-life wife (who really does have the name LeeAnn Kreischer) is also one of the producers of “The Machine,” which means she got suckered into sinking some of her own money into this irredeemable flop.

Bert wants to look like he’s sorry for what he’s done to Sasha, so he throws a big 16th birthday party for her at the family home. The problem is that party isn’t really about Sasha. It’s about Bert showing off. Sasha doesn’t even know most of the people whom Bert invited to the party. It just leads to Sasha having more resentment for her selfish father. To put on a façade that he’s “cleaned up his act,” Bert decided not have any alcohol served at the party, which is attended mostly by adults.

Here’s an example of the rotten “comedy” in “The Machine”: One of the party guests is a family friend named Madison (played by Tea Wagner), who is in the process of getting a divorce. Madison asks Bert in an annoyed voice about the lack of alcohol at the party: “No booze?” Bert replies, “Hey, Madison: No husband?” And then, he mutters underneath his breath: “Fucking bitch.”

Soon, it will be Bert’s turn to get annoyed, when his estranged father Albert Kreischer (played by Mark Hamill) shows up unannounced at the party. Bert is bitter because he thinks Albert has been an inattentive father for most of Bert’s life. Albert, who lives in Florida, owns a carpet company called Kreischer Karpets. Albert thinks that Bert’s career as a comedian is probably over, so he offers Bert a job at the carpet company. It’s an offer that Bert abruptly refuses.

There’s another uninvited guest who shows up at the party. She’s a Russian mob enforcer named Irina (played by Iva Babić, in a very campy performance), who works for Igor. Irina tells Bert that she’s there to get a pocket watch that Bert stole on a train 23 years ago, when he was a 25-year-old college student visiting Russia on a school trip. Bert denies knowing anything about this pocket watch.

However, Bert and Albert get kidnapped by Irina and her goons anyway and are taken by private plane to Russia. (“The Machine” was actually filmed in Serbia.) Irina says that while Bert is in Russia, his daughters will be under surveillance by some of her cronies. Irina warns Bert that if he doesn’t do what he’s told, then his daughters will be harmed. Irina’s cronies are mostly forgettable and generic, except for Irina’s bodyguard: a hulking dolt named Sponge (played by Martyn Ford), who immediately clashes with Bert.

The rest of “The Machine” is nothing but a slog of dimwitted dialogue and fake-looking fight scenes. There are some tedious flashbacks showing college-age Bert (played by Jimmy Tatro) and his shenanigans in Russia. In the flashbacks, there’s a useless subplot involving Bert treating his classmate Ashley (played by Rita Bernard-Shaw), who’s a potential love interest for Bert, like a subservient maid. It’s not a good look, considering Ashley is the only non-white character who has a speaking role in the movie. (Rachel Momcilov portrays the present-day Ashley.)

Kreischer is utterly cringeworthy as an actor and has no charisma on screen. All of the movie’s other performances range from mediocre to unwatchable. Hamill often looks like he regrets signing up for this cesspool of a movie, and he puts no credible effort in his performance. How did he end up in this tacky mess? Did the “Star Wars” franchise not pay Hamill enough money?

There’s no other way to put it: “The Machine” is a complete failure in every single way. It’s yet another example of how being a famous stand-up comedian doesn’t automatically mean that the comedian has what it takes to be a movie star. “The Machine” should have been put out of commission before it was even made.

Screen Gems released “The Machine” in U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.

Review: ’32 Sounds,’ starring Annea Lockwood, Edgar Choueiri, Joanna Fang, Cheryl Tipp, Fred Moten, Christine Sun Kim and Mazen Kerbaj

May 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sam Green in “32 Sounds” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“32 Sounds”

Directed by Sam Green

Culture Representation: The documentary film “32 Sounds” features a predominantly white group of audio enthusiasts (with a few Asians and African Americans and one Latino) talking about how sounds and other aural experiences affect people.

Culture Clash: People have varying degrees of how much they value or pay attention to sounds. 

Culture Audience: “32 Sounds” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of ASMR videos or who want to experience a movie that takes an up-close examination of sounds at various volumes.

Edgar Choueiri in “32 Sounds” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

The documentary film “32 Sounds” has a title that’s somewhat misleading because this movie is actually an abundance of more than 32 sounds. It’s more like a feature-length ASMR [autonomous sensory meridian response] video than anything that is extraordinary or groundbreaking. The movie is inconsistent in how it labels the 32 sounds that inspired the documentary’s title. Most of the anecdotes and sounds can keep viewers interested.

Directed by Sam Green, “32 Sounds” has a meandering quality in how it features interviews with various audio enthusiasts and then usually showing them reacting to or talking about whatever sounds they’ve created, recorded or are listening to in their current location. “32 Sounds” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Ironically, for a movie that keeps repeating that it should be seen in a theater, “32 Sounds” did not have its Sundance premiere in a theater, since the Sundance Film Festival abruptly cancelled its in-person events in 2022, due to COVID-19 concerns, and the festival was held virtually instead.

In an intro to the movie, “32 Sounds” director Green and “32 Sounds” composer JD Sampson are shown thanking people for seeing the film in a theater. Green provides voiceover narration throughout the documentary. He speaks in slow, measured tones that are similar to someone who’s leading a meditation session. Green’s narration for “32 Sounds” includes several comments that assume viewers are watching the movie in a theater.

Other times, the narration can fit to wherever viewers are watching the documentary. For example, multiple times in “32 Sounds,” Green suggests that viewers close their eyes during certain segments, in order to be more immersed in the aural experience without visual distractions. People who keep their eyes open during these segments will just see a blank screen while the sound is playing.

The movie’s frequent assumptions that people are watching “32 Sounds” in a movie theater make the documentary look a little bit out of touch, since movies like “32 Sounds” typically have a very limited release in theaters in low number of cities. The movie was available to the media for review as a digital screener, as well as in-person screenings in select cities. (I saw the movie on a digital screener and used headphones to get the maximum effect for the sounds.)

More people are likely to see low-budget independent films such as “32 Sounds” when they’re released for viewing in formats that are not in a movie theater. In addition, technology has advanced to the point where it’s possible to get a theater-like sound and visual quality in home viewing, with the right equipment. It might not be as big as an IMAX screen, most most advanced home theater systems come very close to replicating what movie theater screens and speakers have to offer.

Green brings a personal touch to the documentary by talking about how he’s kept old cassette tapes of voice mail recordings. Some of these recordings are by people who are now deceased. Green states the obvious: recordings like these are more than just recordings. They are collections of memories.

This is an example of the type of narration that Green has in the film, as he comments about these voice mail recordings: “I wondered if sound is somehow a way to understand time and time passing and loss and the ephemeral beats of the present moment.” If that type of narration makes your eyes glaze over in disinterest, then “32 Sounds” might not be the documentary for you.

The documentary includes some mentions of seminal moments in aural history. Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph is noted as the most revolutionary thing to happen to sound. Also included is what is believed to be the first recording of a human fetus in a womb, with the recording made by midwife Aggie Murch, the wife of famed film editor Walter Murch. (“Womb Tone” was Walter Murch’s famous essay about this recording.) Charles Babbage, the inventor of the computer, is cited as someone who believed that there are untold numbers of sounds that can’t be heard by human ears.

Famous experimental sound artist Annea Lockwood (whose specialty was composing songs from objects that aren’t musical instruments) is the person is prominently featured in “32 Sounds.” The documentary includes archival footage of Lockwood from the late 1960s, as well as exclusive footage of Lockwood filmed for “32 Sounds” when Lockwood was 81 years old.

The movie spends a little too much time being a mini-biography about Lockwood’s career, personal life and what she does in her spare time. One of the scenes in the movie includes Lockwood recording insects and other creatures at Constitution Marsh at the Hudson River in New York state. The sound mixing is played with and tweaked throughout “32 Sounds,” so that anyone can notice how the same sounds can be heard differently from various perspectives.

Cheryl Tipp, a curator of natural sounds at the British Library Sound Archive (which has more than 7 million sound items) is shown playing back the sound of the last known Moho braccatus, an extinct, small-sized bird. The recording features a male Moho braccatus giving mating calls, while rain can be heard in the background. The male Moho braccatus does not know that the last female Moho braccatus was killed during a hurricane. Tipp talks about how this recording is emotionally moving to her.

One of the more fascinating parts of the documentary are scenes with foley artist Joanna Fang, who demonstrates how sound effects are fabricated for movies. These effects are often not done with computers but by the traditional way of using hands and feet to create an illusion of something happening in the movie, whether it’s a dog walking or someone getting stabbed. Fang comments that the “cheat” sound “often sound better than the real thing.”

Edgar Choueiri, director of Princeton University’s electric propulsion and plasma dynamics laboratory, offers a scientific perspective of sounds, as he demonstrates some sounds with his lab equipment. Later in the film, Choueiri listens to a recording that he made for his future self when he was 11 years old. At the time he made the recording, Choueiri says that he vowed not to listen to the recording until after the year 2000. Choueiri is visibly nostalgic and says he went through a range of emotions when hearing his 11-year-old self making a recording to his future self.

The movie’s segments on music are rather eclectic. Green includes archival footage that he took in 2006 of left-wing activist Nehanda Abiodun (an American exiled in Cuba) grooving to a recording of McFadden and Whitehead’s 1979 hit “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.” She says the song reminds her of the time when she and other Human Right Coalition activists were planning a protest in front of the United Nations to accuse the U.S. of human genocide. Abiodun (who died in 2019) also says in the archival footage that the song triggers memories of her efforts to free her activist friend Assata Shakur from jail.

Green also interviews Don Garcia, who is notorious in his New York City neighborhood for driving on the streets late at night and blasting Phil Collins’ 1981 hit “The Air Tonight” at full volume. Garcia gives no real explanation for why he does it on a regular basis, but he seems to enjoy the attention he gets, even if it means that some people complain about the noise. The documentary doesn’t interview anyone who has complained about Garcia’s late-night music blasting. It’s a missed opportunity for “32 Sounds” to contrast how someone’s listening pleasure could be someone else’s listening annoyance.

There’s also a segment where “32 Sounds” composer Sampson is shown (in two invisible split-screen images) playing an original instrumental song on electric guitar and on electric bass. It seems like a promotional music video segment at best. And there’s a random segment where Donna Summer’s 1976 hit “I Feel Love” is in the movie, for no other purpose but for Green to say in a voiceover that viewers can get up and dance to the song if they want to, because no one will care in a darkened theater.

All of these segments on musical sounds are cobbled together with no real theme or central concept in the documentary. The footage of Abiodun just seems to be in the movie so that Green can say that she was his “friend,” as if he has some ties to Black Power activism. Curiously, “32 Sounds” leaves out any mention of tinnitus, a hearing disorder that causes constant buzzing or ringing in the ears. Tinnitus is an occupational hazard of people (such as musicians) who have long-term exposure to loud sounds without wearing earplugs.

The documentary includes an interview with sound artist Christine Sun Kim, who happens to be deaf. She says that deaf people know a lot about the etiquette of sound. Poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten is interviewed in another segment of the movie to talk about the cultural impact of sounds. And experimental musician Mazen Kerbai shares some sound recordings he made of bombs going off in his native country of Lebanon.

Because “32 Sounds” tends to be a rambling film, it might not appeal to viewers who are expecting a documentary that’s more structured. The movie starts off saying that it’s going to showcase 32 sounds, but the numbers identifying each sound are not always shown on screen. The film is ultimately a hodgepodge tribute to diverse sounds and aural experiences, with the movie’s sound mixing intended to cause some spine-tingling or goosebumps for viewers. The “32 Sounds” documentary is like taking an aimless road trip with views that please the senses but not much will be learned from the experience.

Abramorama released “32 Sounds” in select U.S. cinemas on April 28, 2023.

Review: ‘IB 71,’ starring Vidyut Jammwal, Vishal Jethwa, Faizan Khan and Anupam Kher

May 23, 2023

by Carla Hay

Vidyut Jammwal in “IB 71” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)

“IB 71”

Directed by Sankalp Reddy

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1971, in India and Pakistan, the action film “IB 71” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A heroic Intelligence Bureau (IB) agent in India gets involved in saving an airplane hijacked by Kashmir terrorists and thwarting an airspace attack from a Kashmiri militant. 

Culture Audience: “IB 71” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a very fabricated and ludicrous story about the real-life Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Vishal Jethwa in “IB 71” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)

Even by low standards of how ridiculous action movies can be, IB 71 mishandles its depiction of real-life espionage events in 1971. If you believe this movie, then you have to believe one IB agent has a superhero level of fight skills and defense plans. It’s a 117-minute movie that barely has enough substance for a seven-minute film. Most of “IB 71” looks like a sloppy combination of revisionist history and pandering fantasies about what led up to the real-life Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Written and directed by Sankalp Reddy, “IB 71” (which is set in 1971) is yet another loud and bloated action film that quickly becomes repetitive because it doesn’t have much to say that’s interesting and just wants to show people fighting and yelling at each other. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) agent “hero” from India is named Dev Jammwal (played by Vidyut Jammwal), who has the personality of a spent bullet, but viewers are supposed to believe he’s extraordinary in how he can single-handedly avert an international crisis. The movie’s scenes go back and forth between India and Pakistan.

An early scene in the movie shows Dev at the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Delhi, India. Dev tells officials that the prison camps in India have had at least 10 runaways recently. Dev’s boss is N.S. Avasti (played by Anupam Kher), who is told that the Pakistanis are too busy kiling each other to be much of a threat to India. Dev has a sidekick IB partner named Sangram (played by Suvrat), who is as generic as generic can be.

Meanwhile, the IB is investigating Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri separatist, who is said to be planning some type of air raid in 10 days, with China being involved. (China has been helping guard East Pakistan.) N.S. Avasti and other IB officials are told that Maqbool Bhat only cares about gaining control in Kashmir, not India or Pakistan. And so begins the countdown for Dev to figure out what to do about this likely raid.

The movie then gets caught up in Dev being the hero for an airplane hijacking committed by two Kashmiri separatists who are followers of Maqbool Bhat, the leader of the National Liberation Front. The hijackers have taken a small plane (with about 20 to 25 passengers) hostage because they want 36 imprisoned National Liberation Front members to be set free from their prisons in India. These bumbling terrorists don’t know at the time of the hijacking that the airplane pilot is an IB agent named Dev Jammwal.

The hijackers are cousins Qasim Qureshi (played by Vishal Jethwa) and Ashfaq Qureshi (played by Faizan Khan), who make a lot of stupid mistakes. Qasim is the younger cousin. He looks like he’s barely out of high school. And he tries to make up for his youth and inexperience with arrogance and having a bad temper. Qasim gets very angry if anyone acts like he’s too young to be a leader. Ashfaq is a dimwitted follower who doesn’t really question what Qasim says or does.

“IB 71” just becomes a back-and-forth convoluted slog of Dev handling the hijacking and the countdown to the planned air raid, as if he’s the only person in charge of the IB. Everything about “IB 71” looks fake and ill-conceived. There’s really no point in watching bombastic junk like this unless you want to see terrible acting in a soulless and idiotic action film.

Reliance Entertainment released “IB 71” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 12, 2023.

Review: ‘The Kerala Story,’ starring Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani and Siddhi Idnani

May 23, 2023

by Carla Hay

Vijay Krishna, Sumit Gahlawat and Adah Sharma in “The Kerala Story” (Photo courtesy of Sunshine Pictures)

“The Kerala Story”

Directed by Sudipto Sen

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Syria, the dramatic film “The Kerala Story” features a South Asian and Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Three nursing students in Kerala, India, have hellish experiences when they are targeted to be brainwashed and abused by ISIS terrorists. 

Culture Audience: “The Kerala Story” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching “women in peril” stories that are supposed to be based on real people, but the movie looks like a lot of exaggerations and half-truths for dramatic purposes.

Pranay Pachauri, Siddhi Idnani, Pranav Mishra, Yogita Bihani, Adah Sharma and Sonia Balani in “The Kerala Story” (Photo courtesy of Sunshine Pictures)

Even without the controversy surrounding the dramatic film “The Kerala Story,” the movie seems insulting to the real people whose suffering inspired this exploitative movie to get made. This timeline-jumping, messy melodrama wants to depict how women become human trafficking victims of terrorists. However, the film does it in an irresponsible and deceptive way. “The Kerala Story” goes overboard in excusing certain people of certain crimes.

Directed and co-written by Sudipto Sen, “The Kerala Story” exposes its credibility problems when it’s repeatedly stated in movie that about 32,000 to 50,000 women and underage girls have gone missing in Kerala, India, because they’ve been brainwashed, pressured or outright kidnapped into becoming concubines and accomplices for ISIS terrorists. Kerala (the largest geographical state in India) has a population of more than 34 million people. Although human trafficking for terrorism absolutely exists in many parts of the world, several government officials and independent experts have vehemently denied that 32,000 females have disappeared from Kerala for these reasons.

The filmmakers of “The Kerala Story”—including and Sen and “The Kerala Story” co-writers Vipul Amrutlal Shah (who is the movie’s producer) and Suryapal Singh—have since backtracked and publicly stated that the 32,000 to 50,000 statistic is not entirely accurate. Instead, the filmmakers say they can only verify the stories of the three women who are the basis of the three main victim characters in the movie. (All of these women’s real names have been changed in the movie for privacy reasons.)

“The Kerala Story” has an epilogue with updates on the real-life counterparts of the characters depicted in the movie. One of the female survivors, who is given the alias Nimah Mathews in the movie, is shown speaking in the epilogue, with her face in shadows to protect her identity. The epilogue also states that the families of these victims are still fighting for justice. But “The Kerala Story” does a disservice to justice when it doesn’t seem to care about being completely truthful about the facts.

“The Kerala Story” begins by showing an Indian woman being interrogated in a detention center because she has been arrested for being a suspected terrorist. Her name is Shalini Unnikrishnan (played by Adah Sharma), but law enforcement knows her under another name: Fatima Ba. It’s believed that she changed her name to Fatima Ba after she converted to Islam.

In the interrogation room, Shalini/Fatima (who has noticeable physical scars on her face) is world-weary but defiant. She tells the interrogators that instead of wondering what her real name is, they should be trying to find out how a former nursing student like herself could end up in this situation. It’s shown in the movie that just two years earlier, Shalini was an eager and naïve student at National Nursing College in Kerala.

The movie then flashes back and forth in a jumbled timeline to show what happened to Shalini and two of her nursing school roommates when they became the targets of ISIS terrorists. There was a fourth roommate who was the catalyst for the three victims to fall prey to the ISIS terrorists who would traffic and abuse the three nursing students in the worst ways possible. This fourth roommate was able to establish the trust that made it easier for the victims to be deceived.

On the move-in day in their nursing school dorm, Shalini meets her three roommates: Nimah Mathews (played by Yogita Bihani), Gitanjali Melam (played by Siddhi Idnani) and Asifa Ba (played by Sonia Balani). All of the women seem outgoing and friendly, by Asifa is the most serious and the most emotionally guarded of the four roommates. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali will find out the hard way that Asifa’s friendliness is all a façade, because she is part of a conspiracy to get them to join ISIS.

Asifa is a strict Islamic who always wears a hijab. Shalini and Gitanjali are Hindu. Nimah is Catholic. As time goes on, Asifa begins to lecture her three roommates about how Islam is the only religion where they can have spiritual protection. There’s a scene in the movie where Aisfa outright tells her three roommates that the roommates “will surely got to hell” if they are not Islamic.

This idea is reinforced one day when all four women are at a shopping mall, and the three non-Islamic roommates experience an unnerving attack. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali are all sexually harassed and physically assaulted by some young men. One of the men rips Nimah’s shirt off of her. Witnesses who see this attack stand by and do nothing. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali don’t know that Asifa secretly arranged this assault.

A humiliated and shaken Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali go back to their dorm room with Asifa, who lectures them that they probably wouldn’t have been attacked if Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali had been wearing hijabs to show that they are Islamic. Nimah is a devout Catholic who doesn’t really believe what Asifa is saying. However, Shalini and Gitanjali start to believe Asifa and are eventually convinced to convert to Islam.

Part of this lure includes Asifa introducing Shalini and Gitanjali to two of her handsome Islamic bachelor friends: Rameez (played by Pranay Pachauri) and Abdul (played by Pranav Mishra), who are charming and polite. And it isn’t long before Shalini starts dating Rameez, while Gitanjali starts dating Abdul. Shalini and Gitanjali think that their relationships with these boyfriends are “true love.” Rameez says he’s a medical student who comes from an affluent family in Syria, so that makes him even more appealing to Shalini, who soon starts to think that Rameez could be her future husband.

As shown in secret meetings and conversations that Asifa has with her ISIS cohorts, it’s all part of an elaborate plan to get Shalini and Gitanjali to move to Syria and become concubines and accomplices of ISIS terrorists. Asifa also deliberately gets Shalini and Gitanjali hooked on amphetamines. Asifa explains to Shalini and Gitanjali that these drugs will give them more energy for the rigorous studies of Islam that can bring them closer to Allah. Gitanjali eventually begins abusing alcohol and other drugs too.

Asifa is annoyed that Nimah is the most difficult to brainwash. But later in the movie, Asifa sets up Nimah to go on a date with a man whom Nimah does not know is part of the ISIS group. He drugs and kidnaps Nimah, who is taken to Syria, where she is held captive and gang raped. All of it is shown in flashback scenes, but there’s a long section in the movie where the movie makes it look like Nimah just drifted apart from her three roommates because she was the only one of the roommates who never believed in Islam.

Part of the indoctrination process includes Asifa convincing Shalini and Gitanjali that the families of Shalini and Gitanjali are evil because they are not Islamic. Shalini already had a somewhat strained relationship with her widowed mother (played by Devadarshini), who is distressed and confused over why Shalini has further alienated herself from her. Somehow, Asifa has convinced Shalini that Hinduism could not save Shalini’s father from dying years earlier. In her brainwashed state of mind, Shalini thinks her father might still be alive if her family were Islamic and could have prayed to Allah to save her father.

Gitanjali has loving and supportive parents (played by Usha Subramaniam and Jagat Rawat), whom she treats horribly after she coverts to Islam. Unlike Shalini though, Gitanjali resists her lover’s pleas to move to Syria. In one of the worst scenes in the movie, Gitanjali’s father is in a hospital because he had a heart attack from all the stress over Gitanjali’s radical changes. Gitanjali goes to visit him while he’s barely conscious, just so she can spit on him because he’s not Islamic.

There are many other sordid scenes in “The Kerala Story,” including rape of a pregnant woman, physical abuse, revenge porn and other degradation. And while these terrible crimes are part of the horrors of human trafficking, “The Kerala Story” shows it all with a very Islamophobic tone. The ISIS terrorists in the movie are defined in only two ways: their religion and their abuse. In reality, a lot more goes into this type of terrorism than what is shown in the movie.

Shalini’s story becomes more tangled after she moves to Syria to be with Rameez. She gets pregnant by Rameez, who breaks up with her because he doesn’t think she’s worthy of being married to him. Pregnant and abandoned in a country she does not know, Shalini then gets into a quickie arranged marriage with an ISIS terrorist named Ishak (played by Vijay Krishna), who seems to be a “nice guy” at first to Shalini, but he’s actually a violent sadist. The acting in “The Kerala Story” ranges from mediocre to bad, while the screenplay and direction are schlocky.

Because “The Kerala Story” jumps around so much in the timeline, it’s shown near the beginning of the movie that Shalini is married to Ishak. It’s revealed much later in the film how she ended up in this bad marriage. Shalini tries to escape from Ishak and the ISIS terrorists. However, there’s no suspense in that part of the story, because the beginning of the movie already shows that she’s been arrested for suspected terrorism, which obviously means she didn’t escape from the terrorists.

Time and time again, “The Kerala Story” avoids mentioning or showing why Shalini was arrested. The crimes are serious enough that she could be in prison for years. And yet, the movie makes it look like the worst thing that Shalini did was be gullible enough to get fooled by an ISIS-recruiting roommate and fall in love with the wrong man. This avoidance of mentioning Shalini’s crimes is a huge and noticeable void that makes the movie look like it’s not interested in accuracy (even if the truth is unflattering to people who deserve sympathy) and is more interested in presenting these women’s true stories as a relentlessly tacky soap opera.

Sunshine Pictures released “The Kerala Story” in select U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023. The movie was released in India on May 5, 2023.

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ (2023), starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Noma Dumezweni and the voices of Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay

May 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jonah Hauer-King and Halle Bailey in “The Little Mermaid” (Photo by Giles Keyte/Disney Enterprises Inc.)

“The Little Mermaid” (2023)

Directed by Rob Marshall

Culture Representation: Taking place in the 1830s, in and around the waters of an unnamed Caribbean island, the fantasy film “The Little Mermaid” (a live-action remake of the 1989 animated film of the same name) features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, white, Asian and Latin) portraying merpeople, humans and non-human animals.

Culture Clash: An 18-year-old mermaid princess falls in love with a young-adult human prince, and she unwittingly makes a deal with an evil witch to become a human, in exchange for the witch getting to keep the mermaid’s voice and making the mermaid mute.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious fans of the original movie, this live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” will primarily appeal people looking for family-friendly movies with messages about love, bigotry and re-invention, but fans of the original “The Little Mermaid” might not like some of the uneven qualities of this remake.

Melissa McCarthy in “The Little Mermaid” (Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises Inc.)

The visual effects are uneven, and some of the characters are bland, but this live-action remake of the 1989 animated film “The Little Mermaid” has enough appealing aspects to satisfy most viewers. Halle Bailey, Daveed Diggs and Melissa McCarthy are the standout cast members. The multicultural update to the live-action “The Little Mermaid” mostly works seamlessly, although some of it looks too forced and only there for the sake of looking multicultural.

The movie remake’s three new and original songs—with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and music by original “The Little Mermaid” composer Alan Menken (who won also composed the score to 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” remake)—are very good but are not in the upper echelon of classic Disney songs. Menken won an Oscar for composing the score to 1989’s “The Little Mermaid.” The musical score and original songs for 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” work well enough for the movie, but none of it is going to win any Oscars.

Directed by Rob Marshall and written by David Magee, the 2023 remake of “The Little Mermaid” adheres closely to the original story with some noticeable changes that don’t alter the overall spirit of the original story. “The Little Mermaid” remake takes place in the 1830s, in and around the waters of an unnamed Caribbean island populated by many races. It’s in contrast to the original “Little Mermaid” which had a cast of mostly white people.

“The Little Mermaid” is inspired by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name that was published in 1837. Although the writer of the original story was a white European, the story’s location of an island kingdom could be set anywhere in a cinematic version of “The Little Mermaid.” With a Caribbean island as the central human location for this remake of “The Little Mermaid,” it makes sense that the movie would have a multicultural/multi-racial cast, since many Caribbean islands are multicultural/multiracial.

Marshall has a background in movie musicals, having also directed 2002’s Oscar-winning “Chicago,” the 2009 version of “Nine,” the 2014 version of “Into the Woods” and the 2018 sequel “Mary Poppins Returns.” This remake of “The Little Mermaid” doesn’t look entirely like a musical but more like a movie with some music video segments incorporated into the film. Viewers will have varied reactions to how the movie puts some modern hip-hop and modern dance moves in a movie that’s supposed to take place in the 1830s.

Marshall also directed 2011’s “The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” so he has experience directing big-budget visual-effects movies taking place in a sea and in Caribbean settings. Although the visual effects get better in the last third of the live-action “The Little Mermaid,” the movie has some visual effects that look disappointingly fake and sloppy in the first two-thirds of the movie. For example, the movie’s opening scene, which shows the world of merpeople who live in an unnamed sea, has some off-putting visuals that make all of the merpeople look too much like computer-generated imagery.

It’s in this sea that viewers first see the underwater kingdom ruled by King Triton (played by Javier Bardem), a widower who has seven young-adult daughters of different races and who represent the seven seas. The daughters are Tamika (played by Sienna King), Perla (played by Lorena Andrea), Caspia (played by Nathalie Sorrell), Indira (played by Simone Ashley), Mala (played by Karolina Conchet), Karina (played by Kajsa Mohammar) and Ariel (played by Bailey). Unfortunately, the movie makes all of the sisters except Ariel have utterly tepid personalities that are indistinguishable from each other, thereby making all the sisters except Ariel look like “tokens” for whatever human nationality they’re supposed to represent.

At 18 years old, Ariel is the youngest and most open-minded of her sisters, who all have been taught to dislike and distrust the humans who live on land, because humans have been polluting bodies of water, thereby killing a lot of underwater life. King Triton has strictly forbidden his daughters to go above the water. Meanwhile, humans don’t trust merpeople, especially mermaids, because humans blame mermaids for casting spells on sailors (usually by singing) and causing these sailors to die.

Ariel has the belief that everyone should be judged on individual merits and not judged based on an identity group. It’s a belief that King Triton thinks is absurd and naïve. (Bardem does a reasonably good but occasionally stiff performance as King Triton.) Ariel is so fascinated with humans, she keeps a collection of human-made artifacts that she has found underneath the sea. In this early part of the movie, Bailey does a stellar version of “Part of Your World” that will hook even the most cynical viewers into wanting to see more of the movie.

Ariel’s closest companions are an amiable flounder appropriately named Flounder (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and a gossipy seagull named Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina), who is easily able to observe the worlds of humans and merpeople. King Triton’s chief aide is a nervous crab named Sebastian (voiced by Diggs), who is eventually tasked with keeping an eye on Ariel when her father suspects that Ariel wants to go above the water and interact with humans. And sure enough, that’s exactly what Ariel ends up doing.

This version of “The Little Mermaid” has a somewhat drab introduction of the humans in the story. Prince Eric (played by Jonah Hauer-King), who is in his early 20s, is the heir to an unnamed island kingdom. He is first seen on a ship with several members of the royal navy, who are all very uninteresting. None of these navy subordinates has a personality that stands out from the pack. The ship accidentally becomes engulfed in flames, so everyone has to abandon the ship. Not everyone makes it out alive.

In the chaos, Eric falls into the sea, where he is rescued by Ariel and brought on shore to a beach. A groggy Eric regains partial consciousness and finds Ariel embracing him and singing to him. Eric’s vision is blurry but he is utterly enchanted by Ariel’s beauty, compassion and her voice. It’s “love at first sight” for Ariel and Eric. However, Ariel is too frightened to be seen with Eric, so she quickly returns to the ocean. Eric is eventually found by some of his ship mates.

Eric didn’t see that Ariel was a mermaid, so he assumes that she is a human. He goes back to his kingdom and tells his skeptical, widowed mother Queen Selina (played by Noma Dumezweni) that the woman of his dreams saved his life, and he’s determined to find her, because he wants to date her and probably marry her. It’s explained in the movie that Queen Selina and Prince Eric (her only child) are of different races because Selina and her husband adopted Eric when he was an abandoned baby.

Meanwhile, Ariel has become lovesick over Eric. One of the merpeople in this underwater kingdom who has noticed Ariel’s mopey mood is a sea witch named Ursula (played by McCarthy), who hatches a plan to use Ariel for a self-serving scheme to gain control of the kingdom. Ursula, who has a grudge against King Triton, is the half-human, half-octopus sister of King Triton, who banished Ursula years ago for her misdeeds.

Years before Ariel was born, Ursula thought that she would be the one to inherit the sea kingdom, but Triton was named the ruler instead. As part of this leadership position, Triton has a magical triton that has the power to be a weapon as well as way to transform creatures. Whoever owns the triton will essentially be the leader of this sea kingdom.

Ursula introduces herself to Ariel, who is wary because she heard from her father to stay away from Ursula. However, Ursula knows that Ariel and Triton have been arguing because he found out that Ariel disobeyed his orders to stay underwater. Triton also discovers that Ariel has fallen in love with the human prince whom she rescued from death. A smooth-talking Ursula uses this father/daughter conflict to her advantage.

Ursula makes a deal with Ariel: Ursula can turn Ariel into a human for three days, but Ursula will keep Ariel’s voice during this three-day period. If Ariel is able to get a “true love” kiss from Eric, Ariel can remain a human and be with Eric. But if Ariel fails to get this kiss from Eric before the three days are over, then Ariel will be turned back into a mermaid forever and Ursula will get to keep Ariel’s voice.

It’s a big risk that Ariel is willing to take. She’s transformed into a human and ends up naked (covered in seaweed and rope) when she is caught in a fisherman’s net. Ariel is given clothes by the fisherman and eventually finds her way to the kingdom’s palace, where she turned into a handmaiden, who is mute but who catches the attention of Eric. Ariel does not tell Eric that she was the one who rescued him.

Even if people didn’t already know the entire story of “The Little Mermaid,” it’s easy to predict what will happen in this Disney princess story. What makes this movie watchable are the luminous performance of Bailey, the lively voice acting of Diggs (who does a passable Caribbean accent) and the scene-stealing turn by McCarthy. The overall chemistry of the cast members works best when the characters played by Bailey, Diggs and McCarthy are on screen.

Bailey is entirely believable as Ariel, with a performance that is a skillful blend of sheltered innocence and independent curiosity. (A little joke in the movie is that Ariel believes Scuttle’s incorrect statement that a fork is a mini-triton that humans use to comb their hair. Ariel eventually finds out the truth.) Bailey shows undeniable star quality in “The Little Mermaid” (her first starring role in a movie), so it will be interesting to see what other leading-lady roles she will do after this breakthrough performance.

As the frequently exasperated and worried Sebastian, Diggs brings some swagger and bounce to a character whose loyalties are often torn between King Triton and Ariel. Sebastian is also the voice of reason when Ariel becomes too impetuous and stubborn, or when Scuttle becomes too scatter-brained and hyper. The comedy for Scuttle seems to try too hard, while the comedy for Sebastian seems more organic and natural.

Some viewers might not like the touches of comedy that McCarthy (whose speaking voice as Ursula has a lower octave than McCarthy’s real voice) brings to the Ursula character, but these moments of levity are needed and welcome in a movie that comes dangerously close to taking itself too seriously. McCarthy also handles the singing quite well, particularly in Ursula’s signature song “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” McCarthy’s version of Ursula might not be as menacing as many people expect Ursula to be, but McCarthy does a convincing job of portraying a bitter witch who feels entitled to take what she thinks is owed to her.

Viewers will also have mixed reactions to Awkwafina as Scuttle, since people either like or dislike Awkwafina’s speaking voice. One of the highlights in “The Little Mermaid” is the new song “The Scuttlebutt,” a rap-pop hybrid performed by Awkwafina and Diggs, who each has a background in performing rap music. The only drawback to “The Scuttlebutt” song is that is it shows Awkwafina has limited singing skills and sounds better as a rapper.

The other new and original songs in this version of “The Little Mermaid” are “Wild Unchartered Waters” (performed by Hauer-King) and “For the First Time,” performed by Bailey. There’s also a new reprise of “Part of Your World,” performed by Bailey. “Wild Uncharted Waters” and “For the First Time” sound more like traditional Disney musical songs. Some viewers will like that conventional sound, while other viewers will think the songs play it too safe and should have been more inventive.

Sebastian’s showcase songs “Kiss the Girl” and the Oscar-winning “Under the Sea” (with music by Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman) join the Menken/Ashman songs “Part of Your World” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from the original “Little Mermaid” movie that are in this “Little Mermaid” remake. The live-action movie remake of “The Little Mermaid” has a total running tme of 135 minutes, which is a little too long for a movie that just added only three orginal songs. If the movie needed to be this long, it would have been better to replace some of the duller dialogue scenes with dazzling musical numbers that have new and original songs.

Where the live-action version “The Little Mermaid” falters the most is in not really living up to the potential to have more exciting supporting characters. Hauer-King is perfectly pleasant as Prince Eric, but his performance doesn’t have star-making charisma. Hauer-King’s chemistry with Bailey evokes more of a puppy-love crush rather than the type of passionate true love that can lead to a quick marriage. Tremblay’s capable but uninspiring performance as Flounder is overshadowed by the squawking of Scuttle and the wisecracking of Sebastian.

This live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” has a real imbalance in making the sea inhabitants much more interesting overall than the human inhabitants. Prince Eric in particular should be the type of heartthrob who makes millions of admirers swoon, but that type of magnetic romantic appeal just isn’t there in Hauer-King’s performance. Queen Selina and royal court member Sir Grimbsy (played by Art Malik), who is Prince Eric’s chief advisor and confidant, go through the usual motions, but there’s nothing exceptional about the performances of these two characters. There’s also a royal maid named Lashana (played by Martina Laird), who helps Ariel adjust to work life in the palace, but Lashana is ultimately a very generic character.

That doesn’t mean all of the sea life is compelling in this version of “The Little Mermaid.” The eel characters of Flotsam and Jetsam (who are minions of Ursula) are silent, mostly forgettable, and barely in the movie. It’s a missed opportunity to give Flotsam and Jetsam memorable personalities in a live-action remake. And as previously mentioned, the movie makes Ariel’s sisters look like soulless CGI images, instead of mermaids with specific and identifiable personalities.

In other words, this live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” is a mixed bag of flaws and assets, with more assets than flaws. Seeing this movie on the biggest screen possible just makes these assets and flaws more noticeable. The movie’s concept that a female has to change her physical appearance in order to attract and marry a man seems a little outdated in a post-feminism world, even though most of today’s beauty standards for females are still based in these patriarchal ideals. The live-action “The Little Mermaid” doesn’t quite deliver an epic and authentic-looking romance, but the movie does have some delightful performances while staying true to positive messages of overcoming bigotry and self-doubt.

Walt Disney Pictures will release “The Little Mermaid” in U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.

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