Too much in the shopping cart.
‘I Love Boosters’
In the latest from the director Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”), Keke Palmer leads a group of petty thieves facing off against a fashion maven (Demi Moore).
From our review:
Screwball, absurdist, satirical: There’s such a grab-bag approach of styles, gags and references in this film that campy sci-fi portal technology is as likely as body horror involving death by orgasm. All of which is imaginative and entertaining, but at the expense of a more coherent and biting political message.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Baby Yoda goes big.
‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’
A bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) and his adorable sidekick take on a new mission in this “Star Wars” spinoff directed by Jon Favreau.
From our review:
Uneasily attending “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is an extratextual suspicion: Amid a dizzying deluge of series and animated sidebars, has Disney diluted its biggest brand? As its return to the IMAX — I mean, silver — screen, the saga could do worse than this movie. With their main guy’s face behind metal, that’s a more than respectable showing.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Strikes a genre chord.
‘Tuner’
A piano tuner (Leo Woodall) with an unusual hearing condition gets recruited as a safecracker in this genre mash-up directed by Daniel Roher.
From our review:
This is, if it isn’t clear already, a somewhat strange creature of a film, balancing an armload of genres: a New York City romance, briefly a buddy movie with Hoffman, a heist movie and a drama about pained artistry. That it doesn’t feel awkwardly cobbled together but is instead vibrant and breezy is a credit to Woodall’s grounded charisma.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A losing battle of the sexes.
‘Ladies First’
After hitting his head, a chauvinistic executive wakes up in a world where women rule and his work nemesis (Rosamund Pike) now has his job.
From our review:
The director Thea Sharrock and her cast have arch fun flipping the script. … Only the easy feminism of winks and role reversals quickly wears thin. Most of the movie takes place in Damien’s head after all, and much of its lessons are about his growth. Why does that sound so familiar?
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
Deeply researched and deeply upsetting.
‘Manas’
Set on the Brazilian island of Marajó, this dark drama directed by Marianna Brennand follows Marcielle (Jamilli Correa), a 13-year-old girl trapped in cycles of abuse.
From our review:
Brennand spent years researching abuse in the Amazon before making “Manas,” and the film shows, in ways both subtle and explicit, how patriarchal mores and isolation can make girls like Marcielle feel like they are out of options. This is an upsetting film with an abrupt ending, but the feeling of despondence it imposes upon the audience is part of the point.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Starving for specificity.
‘Saccharine’
Hana (Midori Francis), a med student, goes to extreme lengths to reproduce a weight-loss pill made with human remains in this horror movie directed by Natalie Erika James.
From our review:
The supernatural elements — angry ghosts and sunken places — feel like forced metaphors next to Hana’s real-life horrors, and, worse, they diminish the film’s compelling specificity. Disordered eating is washed-out into a more generic sort of mental illness when the beats of a dozen other spooky movies resurface like the blandest of memories.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Jack’s back.
‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War’
John Krasinski returns as the C.I.A. agent Jack Ryan as he untangles an international conspiracy.
From our review:
The director, Andrew Bernstein, keeps the globe-trotting plot, which Krasinski formulated with the screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (“A House of Dynamite”), galloping along until a final reckoning back where all the nastiness started. Take a guess what Jack says to the bad guy once they meet face to face.
Watch on Prime Video. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.
The post 7 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week appeared first on New York Times.
