Look! A week in which I don’t have to review every goddamn thing! Still did plenty, though, as you’re about to see …
Aloft: Love & Mercy isn’t the week’s only time-shuffling drama; the other one features Jennifer Connelly and Cillian Murphy in a generational tale that Rad can’t really get behind.
Berkshire County: I discovered Audrey Cummings’ homegrown home-invasion thriller at last year’s Blood in the Snow festival, but a lot of you missed it. Now’s your chance to catch up.
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World: Belinda Sallin’s documentary finds the Swiss nightmare specialist taking stock at the end of his life. Matt Gourley‘s going to love it.
Heaven Knows What: Dropping into a Toronto run at the very last minute (which meant I had to cover it in today’s web column), Josh and Benny Safdie’s junkie picture– featuring a remarkable debut performance by Arielle Holmes as, basically, herself — is strong enough that even the charisma vacuum of Caleb Landry Jones can’t derail it.
Hungry Hearts: Adam Driver gives what might be his most heartfelt and complex performance to date as a new father who comes to believe his wife (Alba Rohrwacher) is not a fit mother to their son. Unfortunately, he does it in Saverio Costanzo’s terrible melodrama, guaranteeing nobody will ever have the chance to appreciate it.
Insidious: Chapter 3: Leigh Whannell replaces James Wan in the director’s chair and gives their slow-burn horror franchise a little more juice — though possibly it’s just that I’m immune to Wan’s Spooky Vaudevillian aesthetic. Either way, I liked this one the best.
Love & Mercy: I’m less enthusiastic than Susan about Bill Pohald’s Brian Wilson biopic; I don’t think John Cusack works as the ’80s Wilson as well as Paul Dano does as the ’60s version, and the script is really superficial. But it still has moments of real power, especially when Dano or Elizabeth Banks is on screen.
The Nightmare: Rodney Ascher investigates the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, winds up scaring the living fuck out of people. This is great. Go see it.
Spy: Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy rebound from The Heat with an action comedy that’s actually funny and thrilling. McCarthy is terrific, Jason Statham and Rose Byrne give knockout performances in key supporting roles and it plays great with a crowd.
Sunshine Superman: Do you like BASE jumping? Do you like it enough that you’d sit through a 100-minute documentary about one guy who did it, like, all the time? Well, here you go!
Oh, and Entourage opened on Wednesday, but I had to be somewhere else so Rad covered it — a set of circumstances with which I am entirely fine. Those guys are douchebags.