The U.S. box office has done historic business this year, thanks primarily to early spring releases like Beauty and the Beast and Fate of the Furious. With no big ticket releases last weekend, profits took a nose dive.
This weekend offers the same smattering of flicks – some great indies, some lackluster Hollywood filler – so BO will likely be dismal again, but don’t fret! There are some great movies in Columbus if you know where to look. Plus, Guardians 2 hits theaters next weekend, so everything will be fine.
Sleight
Bo (Jacob Latimore) is the world’s most wholesome drug dealer. And that’s fine, because apparently dealing drugs in LA mainly means picking up harmless partygoers and throwing some stash to a club manager with a demanding clientele.
But Bo doesn’t want to be a dealer at all. He’s really a magician, and a huge science buff who could have gone to college on scholarship (science, not magic). But when his mom died unexpectedly, he needed to take care of his little sister. And that meant making more than you can pull in by entertaining tourists with literally the most spectacular set of street magic tricks you’ll ever see.
He’d definitely have a show by now – a good looking kid like him, performing feats like these? He’d at least be making enough in tips to cover rent.
Just as things take off with a new girlfriend, ol’ drug kingpin Angelo (a seriously miscast Dulé Hill) pushes Bo into more dangerous territory, things escalate, there’s this electromagnet in his arm – wait, what?
Yes, Bo has fitted himself with an electromagnet. It’s a little like that cool glowy thing in Iron Man’s chest, except it’s more like a festering, infected thing in Bo’s shoulder.
Sleight is basically a superhero’s origins story wrapped inside a toothless crime drama bubble-wrapped with magic.
Co-writer/director JD Dillard has his hands full trying to pull that trick off. The pace is too slow for action, the characters too one-dimensional and (aside from this one meat cleaver scene) innocuous for a crime thriller.
And that whole magic thing – well, the movie’s a bit of a mess.
Plot holes, missed opportunities and a toothless approach to conflict leave you wondering whether this could have been – it certainly should have been – a stronger film.
Grade: C-
The Transfiguration
Milo likes vampire movies.
So, it would seem, does writer/director Michael O’Shea, whose confident feature debut shows us the relationship between the folklore and the life of a forlorn high school outcast.
Eric Ruffin plays Milo, a friendless teen who believes he is a vampire. What he is really is a lonely child who finds solace in the romantic idea of this cursed, lone predator. But he’s committed to his misguided belief.
O’Shea’s film borrows ideas from George Romero’s Martin, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, and openly gushes over Murnau’s Nosferatu.
So does Milo. It’s a way the filmmaker authenticates the teen’s self-determined transformation. Inside and out, the film draws on the best in vampire cinema to help Milo deal with a world in which he is a freak no matter what he decides to do.
This is a character study as much as a horror film, and the underwritten lead, slow burn and somewhat tidy resolution undercut both efforts.
Still, there’s an awful lot going for this gritty, soft-spoken new image of a teenage beast.
Grade: B
All This Panic
Director Jenny Gage’s documentary offers its audience an unflinching look at the behavior of American teenagers.
Gage spent three years following a few girls in Brooklyn, including Lena, Ginger, Dusty and Sage. On the cusp of leaving high school, the girls are in some ways remarkably mature, and in other ways, still very much children.
As the girls age, they mature in leaps and bounds. Their friendships deepen, they enter into relationships, and they can talk about themselves with insight that many adults lack.
It sometimes feels that kids these days grow up too fast, but the reality, as seen through the camera’s lens, seems a lot like it always has been: kids have the same hopes, fears, and goals that they’ve always had.
Watching All This Panic is like reading a diary. The girls are open, raw, and familiar. You are on this path with them: a friend and confidant. It’s a technique that works, and Gage knows how to draw the audience into this world.
Grade: A-
Below Her Mouth
In a world where thin, beautiful, braless women look hot at work, stare longingly at each other and writhe sensually across the screen, are we supposed to see art where art is not just because Below Her Mouth is a film made by and (ostensibly) for women?
Writer Stephanie Fabrizi and director April Mullen – with an entirely female crew – bring to life the threadbare tale of an uptight good girl whose wild side is ignited by a chance encounter with a bad boy.
The fact that the bad boy is female is beside the point.
No, unfortunately, it is the only point.
Dallas and Jasmine – I swear to God, those are their names – are stiffly played by Erika Linder and Natalie Krill, respectively. Both cut impressive figures and are clearly comfortable with nudity.
Their chemistry is forced and inauthentic, their dialog weak, their storyline nearly nonexistent. What little plot there is – straight, engaged Jasmine indulges her fantasy with Bowie-esque roofer Dallas while her beau is out of town – feels more like porn than like a real movie.
There’s a reason for that.
Below Her Mouth is bound to garner comparisons to Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color – to its terminal detriment. Though Blue has its flaws, it tells a powerful story very well and boasts utterly brilliant performances. And, like Alain Guiraudie’s equally sexually graphic Stranger by the Lake, Blue’s vivid, almost exhausting, carnality supports the narrative.
Below Her Mouth strings together almost enough narrative to frame a dozen or two sex scenes.
Is there something to be said for taking that oh-so-heterosexual film structure (good girl/bad boy, not porn) and upending it? Shouldn’t Mullen be praised for subverting ideas of sexual objectification – if that’s what she’s doing? (We can objectify us just as much as you can – is that the theme at work here?)
Should she be applauded for bringing an entirely female-made film to our theaters?
No. Because the movie sucks.
Grade: D
Also opening in Columbus:
All These Sleepless Nights (R)
Baahubali 2 (NR)
Battle of Memories (NR)
The Circle (PG-13)
How to Be a Latin Lover (PG-13)
Km (R)
Love Off the Cuff (NR)
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (PG-13)
Reviews with help from Rachel Willis.
Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF and listen to her bi-weekly horror movie podcast, FRIGHT CLUB.