Quiet terror, noisy parents, inspiring athletes
‘A Quiet Place’
Silence isn’t only golden in “A Quiet Place”; it’s a lifesaver.
John Krasinski, who also directed and cowrote the new horrorthriller, and Emily Blunt, his wife in real life, live with their two children in a quiet, backwoods cabin away from the world.
It turns out it’s quiet for a reason: The world is overrun by alien predators, which track their prey using sound. Any sound.
Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds (the latter, who won raves for her performance in last year’s “Wonderstruck,” is deaf in real life) play their children, doing their best to follow Dad’s dictate, “Stay Silent, Stay Alive” — and so does the movie, which is largely silent for much of its run time.
So far, “A Quiet Place,” which wowed audiences at South by Southwest last month, is getting some of the best reviews of 2018.
“… When ‘A Quiet Place’ has one finger on the panic button and the other on mute, it’s a nervy, terrifying thrill,” Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt wrote in her B-plus review.
“A Quiet Place” is rated PG-13 for terror some gore. It runs for 90 minutes.
‘Blockers’
What goofier than teenagers out to make their prom a night to remember? How about their bumbling parents, doing everything they can to stop them?
That’s the premise of “Blockers,” the latest comedy from the Seth Rogen stable. Rogen coproduced, with Kay Cannon, who wrote the “Pitch Perfect” movies, making her directorial debut.
The parents — played by Leslie Mann, John Cena and Ike Barinholtz — discover their daughters have a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. So they go into helicopter-parent mode, with the helicopter crashing and burning a few times along the way.
“Blockers,” too, had its debut at South by Southwest, where it also got some pretty good reviews, in part for how it portrays women in an often one-dimensional genre. Reviewing for The Wrap, April Wolfe called the movie “a worthy entry into the teen sex comedy canon, most notably that girls and women are funny and can play more than the killjoy or the babe.” “Blockers” is rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, drug content, teen partying and some nudity. It runs for 102 minutes.
‘The Miracle Season’
Inspirational sports movies are not a new idea, but there just haven’t been many drawing on women team sports.
“The Miracle Season” rectifies that omission, drawing from a true story.
Caroline “Line” Found was the star player on Iowa City West High School’s volleyball team, but she was more than that; she was the heart and inspiration of the team, which had won the state title in 2010. So when, in the summer of 2011, she was killed in a moped accident en route to see her terminally ill mother in the hospital, the heart literally went out of the team, and the community.
Kathy Bresnahan — a Dickeyville, Wis., native and four-year volleyball player at the University of WisconsinPlatteville — was the team’s coach, facing a daunting task: Help the team pick up the pieces and tap into their fallen teammate’s spirit to move forward, on the court and in life.
Helen Hunt plays Bresnahan, with William Hurt as Found’s grieving father. The movie is based on Bresnahan’s book, “The Miracle Season,” out earlier this year from KCI Sports Publishing.
‘Foxtrot’
When an Israeli couple is informed their son has been killed in action, the father begins to suspect the army isn’t telling them everything. Then again, it might be the same old surreal story, in a conflict that doesn’t seem to have an end.
One of this year’s nominees for best foreign-language film, “Foxtrot” stars Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler as the dead soldier’s parents, and is written and directed by writer-director Samuel Maoz.
Maoz and Ashkenazi, who plays Yitzhak Rabin in “7 Days in Entebbe,” are both being singled out in the movie’s nearly universal-rave reviews. Dallas Morning News critic Chris Vognar gave it an A, calling “Foxtrot” “by turns shattering and droll, lyrical and cathartic.”
“Foxtrot” is rated R for some sexual content and brief drug use. It’s in Hebrew with English subtitles, and runs for 114 minutes. ‘Chappaquiddick’
“Chappaquiddick” recounts one of the last half-century’s most dramatic —
and least portrayed on film — scandals.
Jason Clarke plays Ted Kennedy, the last survivor of a political dynasty who, in 1969, drove his car off a bridge in the title locale, resulting in the death of the young woman with him, Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara).
The movie recounts the tragedy and its Shakespearean aftermath, as Kennedy and his clan try to control the uncontrollable damage while they try to contend with their own difficult legacy.
Bruce Dern plays Joe Kennedy Sr., Ed Helms is Ted’s cousin and confidant Joe Gargan, and Jim Gaffigan is friend Paul Markham.
Reviews have been lukewarm so far for “Chappaquiddick.” AV Club critic (and Wauwatosa East High School alum) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky gave it a Bminus, saying the movie “hits its better strides when it turns the camera on the relationship” between the Kennedy family and the people trying to protect its mythology. “Chappaquiddick” is rated PG-13 for thematic material, disturbing images, some language and smoking. It runs for 101 minutes.
‘Flower’
“Flower” isn’t exactly a gentle bloom.
In this dark comedy, Zoey Deutch plays a 17-year-old whirl of defiance named Erica who heads down a darker path when the addled son of her mom’s new boyfriend moves in and tells her a high school teacher (Adam Scott) molested him. Erica and her friends turn vigilante, and, well, let’s just say it doesn’t go well.
Reviews for “Flower” have been mixed, with Deutch getting most of the kudos. “That ‘Flower’ is watchable, even intermittently entertaining, is a testament to the collective force of talent on screen,” Arizona Republic reviewer Barbara VanDenburgh wrote in her 2-star (out of 5) review. “Flower” is R for pervasive crude content and language, nude images, some drug content and a brief violent image. It runs for 93 minutes.
Latin American Film Series
The 40th annual Latin American Film Series brings another batch of contemporary movies from Latin and South America and the Caribbean to the UWM Union Cinema, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. Admission to all movies is free in the series, starting Friday and running
through April 14.
Here are some of the series highlights showing this week. For a full schedule, go to uwm.edu/clacs.
“Another Story of the World,” Uruguay’s submission for this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, about a plot to bust a friend out of prison by turning him into a hero, 9:15 p.m. Friday.
“Cuba’s Forgotten Jewels,” a documentary about a Jewish family’s flight from Nazi-occupied Belgium to Cuba, 5 p.m. Sunday.
“500 Years: Life in Resistance,” the final film in filmmaker Pamela Yates’ Resistance Trilogy about the struggle against oppression in Guatemala, 7 p.m. Monday. (The second movie in the trilogy, 1983’s “When the Mountains Tremble,” shows at 7 p.m. Sunday.)
CineLatino Milwaukee Film Festival
Marcus Theatres’ second annual festival celebrating Hispanic culture kicks off Wednesday with an opening-night premiere of “Overboard,” a remake of the 1987 comedy with Mexican star Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris, at the Bistroplex at Southridge, 5210 S. 76th St., Greendale. Tickets for the 7 p.m. premiere, with a party starting at 5:30 p.m., are $85; proceeds benefit the Aurora Cancer Care Spanish Clinic. The festival starts in earnest Thursday at the Marcus South Shore Cinema, in 7261 S. 13th St., Oak Creek. For a full schedule, go to marcustheatres.com/cinelatino.
Other best bets off the grid
Anime at the Avalon: The anime-fest continues into April at the Avalon Theater, 2473 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., with the original, 1995 animated version of “Ghost in the Shell” at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday; and the 2003 comic gem “Tokyo Godfathers” at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, repeating at 11 a.m. April 15. Admission is $5. Info: avalonmke.com.
aCinema’s “An Answer Without a Question”:This curated program of four short art films draws from inspirations from Japan to Ghana. It’s showing at 7 p.m. Friday at Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 E. Locust St., with a suggested donation of $5. Info: