It looks like the only good movies opening this week are TIFF holdovers.
First goddamn week of winter.
The Boy: A young woman (Lauren Cohan) is hired by a weird English family to mind their son, who turns out to be a Real Doll or something. It isn’t as bad as I’d feared, but neither is it any good.
Boy & the World: Ale Abreu’s animated allegory tips over into smash-the-system messaging so clumsily that even little kids will notice. Still, the Oscar nomination’s for for the craft, not the sloganeering.
Dirty Grandpa: Not a sequel to the Johnny Knoxville comedy but a whole different old-man-acting-gross movie! With Robert De Niro! Who clearly likes money! Rad says he doesn’t totally phone in his performance, anyway.
The 5th Wave: When aliens attack Earth, Chloe Grace Moretz and Maika Monroe must Katniss up to save their friends and family. Rad ain’t buying it.
45 Years: Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play a long-married couple struggling with an unwelcome revelation in Andrew Haigh’s unlikely follow-up to Weekend. Susan loved it.
Fractured Land: West Coast activist and lawyer Caleb Behn is an undeniably interesting person, but Damien Gillis and Fiona Rayher’s documentary fails to do justice to either their subject or his cause.
The Masked Saint: This week’s podcast guest Warren P. Sonoda set out to make the best pastor-and-masked-wrestler-turned-vigilante movie ever. Technically, he succeeded!
One Floor Below: What would you do if you were, like, 85% sure you knew your neighbor was a murderer? Radu Muntean’s Romanian character study turns Rear Window into a study in moral ambiguity. I dug it.
And you wonder why we look down on January around here.
I’m bringing The Great Detroit documentary to Toronto this May.
Details forthcoming.
Okay!