OPENING
Aaryan (NR) This Indian crime thriller stars Vishnu Vishal as a struggling writer who decides to plan a series of perfect murders. Also with Vani Bhojan, Chandru, Vaani Kapoor, K. Selvaraghavan, and Shraddha Srinath. (Opens Friday)
Anniversary (R) Overheated family drama disguised as anti-fascist rhetoric. Diane Lane stars in this film as a prominent Georgetown law professor whose loser son (Dylan O’Brien) marries a former student of hers (Phoebe Dynevor) who full-on wants to repeal the U.S. Constitution so that America can be cleansed of dissidents and educated people. Polish director Jan Komasa (who was Oscar-nominated for Corpus Christi) knows about societies with thought police, but his depiction of America’s descent into fascism isn’t thought through well enough. The same is true for the fracturing of this family despite some terrific performances by O’Brien as a guy who blackmails his own family members after he becomes a government big shot and Mckenna Grace as his biology genius sister. The whole affair is a parade of misery. Also with Kyle Chandler, Zoey Deutch, Madeline Brewer, Daryl McCormack, Flavia Watson, Selda Kaya, and Sky Yang. (Opens Wednesday)
Baahubali: The Epic (NR) This double feature is a recut re-release of the 2015 historical epics about a warrior (Rana Daggubati) who protects his homeland in the Indus Valley. Also with Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishnan, Tamannaah Bhatia, and Prabhas. (Opens Friday)
Between the Mountain and the Sky (NR) Jeremy Power Regimbal’s documentary profiles Maggie Doyne, the adoptive mother of 50 Nepalese children as she deals with health issues. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Depeche Mode: M (NR) Fernando Frias’ concert documentary chronicles the band’s performance in Mexico City in 2023. (Opens Wednesday in Dallas)
Dies Irae (NR) Pranav Mohanlal stars in this Indian horror film as a traumatized man who sees horrific visions. (Opens Friday)
G-Dragon (NR) Byun Jin-ho’s documentary profiles the K-pop singer and rapper on his solo tour. (Opens Friday)
Hallow Road (NR) A double feature with Vincent Must Die, this British horror film is about a couple (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) who receive a late-night phone call from their daughter (voiced by Megan McDonnell) saying that she has killed someone in a road accident. Also with Stephen Jones. (Opens Friday)
Ikk Kudi (NR) This Indian thriller stars Shehnaaz Gill as a woman who starts investigating the past of her arranged fiancé. Also with Sukhi Chahal, Baljinder Darapuri, Neha Dayal, and Gurpreet Singh. (Opens Friday)
It Was Just an Accident (PG-13) Jafar Panahi’s latest film is about a group of Iranian former political prisoners who must decide whether to torture the jailer who tortured them in prison. Starring Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afhari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, and Majid Panahi. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
KPop Demon Hunters (PG) The first great K-pop musical was made by Americans. This is the year’s best animated film so far, which would be recommendation enough. However, the songs are killer, the filmmakers are full of incisive observations about K-culture, and the film has a distinctive visual style made by grafting the look of Japanese anime onto 3D computer animation. The story is about a girl group that is secretly preventing demons from taking over the world when they’re not releasing new music, and they threaten to fracture when a rival boy band learns about the main singer’s hidden secret. The movie is a great primer on the sound that has taken over the world, and if the girl group were a real band, I’d consider buying tickets. Voices by Arden Cho, Ejae, May Hong, Audrey Nuna, Yoo Ji-young, Rei Ami, Ahn Hyo-seop, Andrew Choi, Kim Yun-jin, Lea Salonga, Daniel Dae Kim, Lee Byung-hun, and Ken Jeong. (Re-opens Friday)
Mass Jathara (NR) This Telugu-language action-thriller stars Ravi Teja as a railway cop caught up in a criminal plot. Also with Sreeleela, Rajendra Prasad, Naveen Chandra, Navya Swamy, Naresh, and Kadambari Kiran. (Opens Friday)
Nouvelle Vague (R) Richard Linklater’s historical drama is about Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) as he prepares to transition from film criticism to making a film. Also with Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Adrien Rouyard, Bruno Dreyfürst, Antoine Besson, Jodie Ruth-Forest, Benjamin Clery, and Alix Bénézech. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Self-Help (R) This interesting horror film stars Landry Bender as a college student who comes home and discovers that her divorced mother (Amy Hargreaves) has married a cult leader (Jake Weber) who keeps insisting that his organization is not a cult. Director/co-writer Erik Bloomquist (who also portrays one of the cult members) laces this creation with notes of antic humor like the South Park-style animated video that introduces our villain, as well as fantasy sequences implying that our young heroine might just be even more dangerous and violent than the Svengali. Weber also contributes a cagey and funny turn as a convincingly life-sized manipulator who persuades his followers to mutilate and kill themselves. The quality of the acting and writing make this worthwhile. Also with Madison Lintz, Carol Cadby, Blaque Fowler, Adam Weppler, and James Nash. (Opens Friday)
Stitch Head (PG) Based on Guy Bass’ children’s book, this animated film is about a mad scientist’s creation (voiced by Asa Butterfield) who’s brought to life to protect the other monsters. Additional voices by Joel Fry, Fern Brady, Paul Tylak, Alison Steadman, and Rob Brydon. (Opens Wednesday)
The Taj Story (NR) This Hindi-language legal drama is about a group of contemporary lawyers contesting that the Taj Mahal was originally built as a Hindu temple. Starring Paresh Rawal, Zakir Hussain, Amruta Khanvilkar, Namit Das, Sneha Wagh, Latika Raj, and Shishir Sharma. (Opens Friday)
Videoheaven (NR) Alex Ross Perry’s documentary tracks the history of video stores and their impact on society. Narrated by Maya Hawke. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Vincent Must Die (NR) A double feature with Hallow Road, this French horror film stars Karim Leklou as a man who suddenly finds that everyone who crosses his path is trying to kill him. Also with Vimala Pons, François Chattot, Jean-Rémi Chaize, Karoline Rose Sun, Ulysse Genevrey, and Emmanuel Vérité. (Opens Friday)
Violent Ends (R) Billy Magnussen stars in this revenge thriller about a man who goes to war with his own family of criminals in the Ozarks. Also with Kate Burton, James Badge Dale, Sean Harrison Jones, Matt Riedy, Nick Stahl, and Alexandra Shipp. (Opens Friday)
The Wrecker (NR) Niko Foster stars in this thriller as a dishonorably discharged ex-Marine who must save his brother (Chad Michael Murray) from the mob. Also with Mena Suvari, Danny Trejo, Tyrese Gibson, Oleg Prudius, and Harvey Keitel. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
After the Hunt (R) Luca Guadagnino’s #MeToo drama has a lot of star power and not much to say. Julia Roberts stars as a Yale philosophy professor who’s caught in the middle when her prize Ph.D. student (Ayo Edebiri) accuses a popular professor (Andrew Garfield) of rape. Watching this movie is like trying to hit a golf ball-sized piñata while blindfolded and facing the wrong direction. Screenwriter Nora Garrett gins up the suspense by withholding key information, and the payoff is too small when she does reveal the secrets that the characters are keeping. The complexity here is too much for the filmmakers to handle, and the resolution isn’t earned. This movie’s grander ambitions and hot-button issues wind up defeating it. Also with Michael Stuhlbarg, David Leiber, Thaddea Graham, Will Price, and Chloë Sevigny.
The Bad Guys 2 (PG) Better than the first movie, actually. The gang (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Marc Maron, and Craig Robinson) has trouble landing jobs after getting out of prison, so a rival gang frames them for their own crimes and forces them to commit additional crimes to clear their names. The climactic sequence is a bit drawn out, but until then the movie has a nice time mocking tech billionaires who want to go into space and the tropes of heist movies, as well as a nice interlude at a lucha libre wrestling event. Mark this down as an above-average animated kids’ film. Additional voices by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova, Zazie Beetz, Jaime Camil, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh, Alex Borstein, Omid Djalili, and Natasha Lyonne.
Black Phone 2 (R) Deeply confused. Mason Thames reprises his role from the 2021 original as the now-traumatized teenager who has visions of the pedophile serial killer (Ethan Hawke) whom he killed, and whose younger sister (Madeleine McGraw) is now having visions of kids murdered decades before at a Christian youth camp in the Rockies. Set in 1983 as the siblings arrive at the snowed-in camp, the movie purposefully echoes The Shining, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street and also tries to throw in some Christian theology for good measure. It all fails because the underlying horror plot moves so sluggishly and without regard for internal logic. I’m not even sure what this series is supposed to be anymore. Also with Jeremy Davies, Miguel Mora, Arianna Rivas, James Ransone, Anna Lore, and Demián Bichir.
Blue Moon (R) Ethan Hawke gives possibly the performance of his career as Lorenz Hart, the tormented alcoholic gay song lyricist who spends one night at a bar watching his partnership with Dick Rodgers (Andrew Scott) fall apart and being rejected by a Yale student (Margaret Qualley) whom he’s attracted to despite his homosexuality. This is yet another Richard Linklater film that suffers from staginess, but that only serves to throw its lead performance into higher relief. Hawke uncannily captures the vibe of a barfly who drinks too much and talks even more, fills the space with his theatrical self-pity, avoids wearing out his welcome by being so self-deprecatingly funny, and can’t avoid feeling like an unlovable freak despite his palpable genius. Also with Bobby Cannavale, Jonah Lees, Giles Surridge, Simon Delaney, David Rawle, Elaine O’Dwyer, and Patrick Kennedy.
Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc (R) This anime film has its protagonist (voiced by Kikunosuke Toya in the Japanese version and Ryan Colt Levy in the English-dubbed one) falling in love with a cafe worker (voiced by Reina Ueda). Additional voices by Tomori Kusunoki, Shôgo Sakata, Ai Farouz, and Natsuki Hanae. (Opens Friday)
The Conjuring: Last Rites (R) Ed and Lorraine Warren finally retire, and it’s at least two movies too late. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga take their last turn as the paranormal investigating couple, looking into a haunted mirror in Pennsylvania. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen, but our investigators take forever to actually get to the site. The movie wastes so much time on their backstory, as well as their adult daughter (Mia Tomlinson) getting married and having her own psychic visions. That doesn’t work, and neither does the scary stuff. Also with Orion Smith, Madison Lawlor, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Beau Gadsdon, Kila Lord Cassidy, Elliot Cowan, Rebecca Calder, Peter Wight, Madison Wolfe, Frances O’Connor, Mackenzie Foy, Lili Taylor, and an uncredited James Wan.
Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle (R) The latest installment of the anime saga has a new look and the same issues. The demon Muzan Kibutsuji (voiced by Toshihiko Seki and Greg Chun) lures the demon slayers into his castle, an impressive looking, Christopher Nolan-influenced fortress where floors and walls are constantly shifting and the crevices between dimensions peek through. This would be a great backdrop for a thriller with horror elements, but as with too many of these adventures, the fight sequences are interrupted by gauzy and overly lengthy flashbacks. Anime fans will be used to this, but this squanders a chance to rope in newcomers to the epic. Additional voices by Natsuki Hanae, Zach Aguilar, Akari Kitō, Abby Trott, Hiro Shimono, Aleks Le, Yoshitugu Matsuoka, Bryce Papenbrook, Reina Ueda, Brianna Knickerbocker, Yuichi Nakamura, and Channing Tatum.
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat (NR) Sonam Bajwa stars in this Indian thriller as a woman whose romance with a prominent politician (Harshvardhan Rane) turns deadly. Also with Shaad Randhawa, Sachin Khedekar, Rajesh Khera, and Ananth Narayan Mahadevan. (Opens Friday)
Frankenstein (R)
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (G) Strictly for fans of the kids’ TV show, I’m afraid. Laila Lockhart Kraner reprises her starring role as a girl whose dollhouse full of cat dolls is stolen by a crazed collector (Kristen Wiig). Despite the celebrities doing the voices of the cat dolls, the separation of them doesn’t lead to interesting subplots, and the songs sung by the cast are less than inspired. All the sparkly stuff on the screen will entertain small children, but even the star seems like she’s outgrown this material. Also with Gloria Estefan. Additional voices by Kyle Mooney, Melissa Villaseñor, Ego Nwodim, Thomas Lennon, Fortune Feimster, and Jason Mantzoukas.
Godday Godday Chaa 2 (NR) This Indian comedy takes place in a Punjabi village where the women take control of wedding preparations from the men. Starring Amrit Amby, Gurpreet Bhangu, Gitaj Bindrakhia, Nikeet Dhillon, Seema Kaushal, and Nirmal Rishi. (Opens Friday at Cinemark North East Mall)
Good Fortune (R) Aziz Ansari’s directing debut shows some flashes of promise before falling apart near the end. The standup comic stars as a downtrodden service worker who’s visited by a bumbling guardian angel (Keanu Reeves). The angel then allows him to experience the life of the venture capitalist (Seth Rogen) who recently fired him, except that our guy likes being rich so much that he doesn’t want to go back. The comedy is put together pretty well and offers some trenchant comments on the gig economy, and the lead actors are all on their game. Unfortunately, the film stumbles when it tries to find purpose in the lives of the minimum-wage earners. Ansari has the talent to keep at this, he just needs to give a bit more thought to his material. Also with Keke Palmer, Felipe Garcia Martinez, Matt Rogers, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Sandra Oh.
Jerry on Top (NR) This Nepalese thriller stars Anmol KC as a rich man’s son who aims to prove himself by climbing Mount Everest. Also with Aanchal Sharma, Jassita Gurung, Kedar Ghimire, and Bhuwan KC.
Kantara: Chapter 1 (NR) Confusingly, this is a sequel to the 2022 Indian film, with Rishab Shetty playing a different role in a story about pre-colonial tribes rising up against a tyrant (Jayaram). Also with Rukmini Vasanth, Gulshan Devaiah, Pramod Shetty, Rakesh Poojari, and Prakash Thuminad.
Last Days (PG-13) Director Justin Lin started out with low-budget, character-driven dramas about Asian-Americans before he directed entries in the Fast & Furious franchise, and it’s good to see him return to his roots. This film based on the Outside magazine article stars Sky Yang as John Allen Chau, the Christian missionary who was killed while trying to convert the unreached natives of North Sentinel Island. The film also takes up the viewpoint of an Indian cop (Radhika Apte) who tries to stop him from going on his fatal mission, and while some of this drama is cheesy and difficult to believe, it also provides a valuable counterpoint to John’s dead certainty that the North Sentinelese will go to hell without him. Also with Ken Leung, Toby Wallace, Ciara Bravo, Marny Kennedy, Claire Price, Dieudonné Ngabo, and Naveen Andrews.
The Long Walk (R) Stephen King’s ageless wonder of a novel becomes a powerfully tragic film. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson play two young men in a dystopian future America who enter a contest where 50 males walk along a predetermined highway route and are executed when they can walk no more, with the last kid walking receiving a fortune. The most Hunger Games-ian of King’s books is adapted by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, who follows the author’s relentless focus on what a forced march like this does to the human body. Amid a landscape of cruelty inflicted on young men, the friendship that forms between the two main characters (who still know that one of them is destined to wind up dead) shines like a beacon of humanity. Their performances turn this into nothing less than this generation’s The Shawshank Redemption. Also with Judy Greer, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer, Tut Nyuot, Garrett Wareing, Joshua Odjick, Jordan Gonzalez, Roman Griffin Davis, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Hamill.
One Battle After Another (R) One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s more purely enjoyable movies stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former anti-ICE revolutionary who has to save his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a supersoldier (Sean Penn) who has reason to think the girl is his own biological daughter and kill her to destroy evidence of his sexual preference for Black women. The story is loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and set in the present day, which brings out the antic, puckish side of Anderson’s filmmaking. The film has nerve-frying action sequences, including an inventive car chase in the California desert with the cars appearing and disappearing from view because of the hilly terrain. The film also gets great performances from the newcomer Infiniti, DiCaprio as a father who realizes he’s not doing so good as a parent because he’s drunk and stoned all the time, and Penn as a villain brimming with hatred for this girl he has never met. It’s not as tidy as I’d like, but it’s great anyway. Also with Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Kevin Tighe, D.W. Moffett, and Tony Goldwyn.
Pets on a Train (PG) This English-dubbed version of a French animated film is about a group of animals who must save the passengers on a runaway train. Voices by Damien Ferrette, Hervé Jolly, Kaycie Chase, Frantz Confiac, Emmanuel Garijo, and Nicolas Marié.
Regretting You (PG-13) Grapevine’s own Mckenna Grace is the only reason to watch this weeper based on Colleen Hoover’s novel. She portrays a high-school theater kid in North Carolina whose father (Scott Eastwood) and mother’s sister (Willa Fitzgerald) are killed in the same car accident, and her mother (Allison Williams) tries to keep the knowledge from her that the two were having an affair. The dramatic messiness of this situation gets sanded over at every turn by director Josh Boone and by the decorating-magazine interiors that it all plays out in. The only thing that keeps this from inducing sleep is the spiky turn by Grace as a girl who’s looking at colleges while finding first love with a movie nerd (Mason Thames) in her class. Her performance does North Texas proud. Also with Dave Franco, Sam Morelos, Ethan Costanilla, and Clancy Brown. (Opens Friday)
Roofman (R) Derek Cianfrance’s charming but oh-so-slight caper film stars Channing Tatum as an escaped convict who spends more than a year hiding from a manhunt by living in a Toys ‘R’ Us store in Charlotte. The film has some good material about how the protagonist keeps tabs on the goings-on in the store and avoids detection by the customers and employees, and Tatum does some good work when his character falls in love with a downtrodden toy saleswoman and single mother (Kirsten Dunst). Still, the film is unwilling to explore the darker implications of its story and its main character, and the stacked supporting cast looks way overqualified for what they’re given to do. For good and bad, thiss movie feels like something that the filmmaker tossed off. Also with LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Ben Mendelsohn, Tony Revolori, Melonie Diaz, Uzo Aduba, Molly Price, Emory Cohen, Lily Collias, Punkie Johnson, Jimmy O. Yang, and Peter Dinklage.
Shelby Oaks (R) YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann directs his first feature film, and while there are some admirable points to it, it falls down at the most important junctures. Camille Sullivan portrays a woman whose sister (Sarah Durn) is the host of a YouTube paranormal events channel who goes missing while investigating a haunted house. The movie blends found-footage and more classical narrative pretty effectively, but Stuckmann fails to deliver just when the movie should be scariest, and the overarching plot makes no sense. Quite how this movie got picked up for major distribution is beyond me. Also with Charlie Talbert, Eric Francis Melaragni, Caisey Cole, Anthony Baldasare, Brendan Sexton III, Robin Bartlett, and Keith David.
Soul on Fire (PG) Based on a real-life story, this Christian drama stars Joel Courtney as a young man who starts a business and a family despite suffering severe burns as a child. Also with John Corbett, Stephanie Szostak, Masey McLain, James McCracken, and William H. Macy.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (PG-13) Depression sure is dull in this biopic about one of America’s great musicians. Jeremy Allen White looks dead on as the young Boss and does an acceptable job of singing Bruce Springsteen’s songs, but can’t force any life into this rote film that covers the rock legend’s life in the early 1980s, when he’s already famous but not yet the megastar that he would become. Writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) goes through Springsteen’s family history of mental troubles and his relationship with a diner waitress from Jersey (Odessa Young), but the movie yields less insight into the musician’s body of work than Blinded by the Light or High Fidelity. Unlike Springsteen’s songs, this fails to take you anywhere transcendent, or even interesting. Also with Jeremy Strong, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffman, Paul Walter Hauser, David Krumholtz, Matthew Pellicano Jr., Grace Gummer, and Marc Maron.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 (R) It says something that the best sequence here is not when the heroine (Madelaine Petsch) is attacked by the Strangers, but rather by a warthog. After the events of the original movie, she is still being hunted by the Strangers, and the movie turns into a survival thriller as she hides in the wilderness from the killers. However, the set pieces that don’t involve the warthog are dull, and the main character goes from being really clever to being really stupid and back without any logic. When she kills the warthog, the movie passes up the chance to make her into a less fearful fighter on her own behalf, and the attempts at giving the killers backstory are little less than disastrous. Also with Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, Richard Brake, Pedro Leandro, Ella Bruccoleri, and Lily Knight.
Thamma (NR) Ayushmann Khurrana and Rashmika Mandanna star in this Indian horror-comedy about a journalist who finds a story in a nearby village after he’s stranded in the jungle. Also with Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Paresh Rawal, Geeta Agarwal Sharma, Faisal Malik, Alexx O’Neill, Nora Fatehi, Abhishek Banerjee, and Varun Dhawan.
Tron: Ares (PG-13) The best of the Tron movies, for what that’s worth. The third film stars Jared Leto as a computer-engineered super-soldier who’s sent by his tech CEO creator (Evan Peters) to kill a rival CEO (Greta Lee). Norwegian director Joachim Rønning manages to conjure up some genuinely cool-looking action sequences both in cyberspace and in the real world, and nostalgists for 1980s tech will love the scene when the soldier goes into the world from the original movie and meets Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Unhappily, the movie misses its chances to either comment on the evolution of technology or make its human characters’ emotional longings feel real. The series continues to be an aesthetic rather than a story. Also with Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, Hasan Minhaj, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, and Gillian Anderson.
Truth & Treason (PG-13) This Christian historical drama works reasonably well to start with before it falls apart. Ewan Horrocks stars as Helmuth Hübener, the real-life teenager who was a devoted Hitler supporter in Hamburg in 1941 before the arrest of his Jewish friend (Nye Occomore) made him realize that supporting the Nazis was incompatible with his Christian faith. The movie’s first half depicts Helmuth typing up anti-Hitler leaflets and distributing them by hand to mailboxes and parked cars in the city’s neighborhoods while an SS officer (Rupert Evans) tries to track them down, and it’s all fairly well done by director Matt Whitaker. Unfortunately, after Helmuth is caught, the suspense leaks out of the proceedings as the film becomes another tale of martyrdom. Also with Ferdinand McKay, Daf Thomas, Sean Mahon, Joanna Christie, Dominic Mafham, and Sylvie Varcoe.
Dallas Exclusives
The Librarians (NR) Kim A. Snyder’s documentary profiles librarians in Texas and Florida trying to prevent government censorship of books.
